Galaxy S9 Vs. S8: Which Samsung Flagship Has Better Battery Life?

In the weeks and days leading to the launch of the Galaxy S9 and S9+, many leaks and reports indicated that the new flagship handsets will have the same battery capacities as last year’s flagships. The information may have irked some fans, thinking that the new phones won’t see improved battery life. However, that seems to be not the case here.

Samsung has already published vital information about its new high-end smartphones, and part of this is the expected battery life of the devices when they reach consumers come March 16. Based on Samsung’s stats, the S9 and the S9+ have improved battery life compared to their predecessors.

According to SamMobile, the boost in battery life is made possible by the more efficient chipset powering the two Android flagships. The S9 and S9+ come equipped with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 845 chipset, while last year’s S8 and S8+ are powered by the Snapdragon 835. The former is more power-efficient than the latter, so that says a lot on why the newly announced devices can go longer than their predecessors on a single charge.

As proof to how power-efficient the Snapdragon 845 is, when the Always On Display (AOD) is disabled while MP3 playback is working, the Galaxy S9 lasts 13 hours longer than S8’s 67 hours. Meanwhile, the Galaxy S9+ can last up to 94 hours, which is significantly longer compared to the S8+’s 78 hours. When the AOD is enabled though, the difference in both the S9 and S9+ and their predecessors is four hours.

Another aspect where the combination of the Galaxy S9 and S9+ batteries with the Snapdragon 845 comes in handy is talk time. Last year’s Galaxy S8 was only capable of providing a talk time of 20 hours, while the all-new Galaxy S9 can go for up to 22 hours. On the other hand, the S9+’s advantage in this area is only an hour more than the S8+’s 24 hours of talk time.

In other areas, the 2018 flagships and the 2017 flagships are capable of providing the same length of battery life. Both the Galaxy S8 and S9 have 16 hours of video playback, 14 hours of internet use with Wi-Fi, 11 hours of internet use with 3G and 12 hours of internet use with LTE. Meanwhile, the S8 and S9+ have 18 hours of video playback, 15 hours of Wi-Fi, 13 hours of 3G and 15 hours of LTE usage.

It’s worth noting at this point that Samsung’s published battery stats are not absolute. The longevity of the devices will vary based on the usage patterns of owners. Nonetheless, it’s good that even with the same battery capacities, the new handsets can offer longer battery life in some aspects.