I would expect Google’s software to be MUCH better on battery life than Samsung’s , for example. Yet somehow I am getting about an hour more SOT from my Note 9 than from my Pixel 2 XL - whose battery life I was pleased with.
The best way to compare this on an apples to pears to oranges basis would be to do the following:
1) take Note 8 average battery life and note the net increase that is observed between it and the Note 9 when only using the same amount of mAh, meaning if we're using 80% of the battery on the Note 8, or 2640 mAh, then we only use the Note 9 down to 34%, because 2640 is 66.0% of the Note 9's battery. That would give us the battery efficiency change from the combination of the Oreo 8.1 vs 8.0 and the SD845 vs the SD835.
2) That efficiency change can be compared to the PX2L to the P3XL in a the reverse process and that may clue us into an expected battery life of the P3XL. This of course assumes that the software differences between Pie and Oreo are just as negligible to battery life as the differences between Oreo 8.1 and 8.0, which is the best case scenario for comparing battery life in Samsung's favor.
3) That value can then be directly compared to the Note 9's actual battery life, without the 14% hindrance to get a good guesstimate of how much that 2% loss on the P3 XL is impacting it's potential battery life compared to that of the Note 9.
All values used as demonstration are giving Samsung the best possible advantage over the Pixel line.
As an example, if the Note 8 was giving people who burn down to 0% an average of 6 hours of SOT, and the Note 9 with the same 100% burn down is 7.5 hours of SOT, then the 80:66 comparison would be 4.80 hours expected on the Note 8 and 4.95 on the Note 9. That means The Note 9 hardware and software, outside of battery capacity, is .15 hours more efficient, or 3.12% more efficient. Applying a 3.12% efficiency increase to the Pixel 2 XL, assuming it also was getting 6 hours, would give the 2XL .19 hours of additional SOT at 100% or .15 hours at 80%. Taking this value times the reduction of mAh would result in 6.06 hours at 100% or 4.85 hours at 80%, both of which are slight increases over the Pixel 2 XL.
The shortcut here is taking the 3.125% * 98% and the Pixel 3 XL should be gaining 3.0625% efficiency from the hardware/software, including the reduction, so battery life should still be better. If average SOT numbers are different, obviously that percentage would change, because it's a ratio, but that's the short version of the methodology.
TLDR If we assume that the Note 8 and P2 XL had the same battery life and that the Note 9 has is 25% better battery life than the Note 8, despite only being a 21.21% increase in mAh, then at a minimum, even with a 2% smaller battery, the Pixel 3 XL will still have better battery life than the P2XL and thus the Note 8. The Note 9 would still have the best battery life of the four phones with these variables. Using numbers that seem more realistic, based on posts in the forums, the P2 XL and Note 9 seem to be very similar and that closes the difference between the P3 XL and the Note 9 to nearly negligible values.
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