To me efficiency matters more than which phone lasts longer: a bigger battery usually lasts longer which makes comparisons useless, right?.

I was watching battery drain tests on YouTube and decided to actually look into real results, when it comes to efficiency of smartphones’ battery rather than % left after certain tests in similar conditions.

Here’s the original video by ZONEofTECH:

Battery drain test by ZONEofTECH

I noticed in the comments how some people become very defensive of their favorite tech when it does not perform well. But the actual reality may be the opposite, when looking into raw statistics.

On the Excel file that can be downloaded here, I input all data from the video and do basic percentage-based operations to find out which phone is the most efficient at battery draining at certain tasks.

Here’s the screenshot of the Excel file, if you don’t care downloading.

You can look at the results yourself but here I’ll summarize the findings, according from ZONEofTECH’s data.

Test 1 — reading for 1h, 1.5h and 2h: Results

iPhone XS consumes the least battery, where Pixel 2 XL and iPhone 7+ consume too much. Despite bigger battery and screen, Note 9 is doing worse than iPhone XS Max. (Note 9 is running HD, not QHD screen)

Test 2 — video recording for 10 min: Results

Again, iPhone XS takes the crown — consuming the least. But the worst battery drainers are Pixel 2XL and iPhone 7+.

Test 3 — Standby test for 1 hour: Results

Here, it’s the only time when iPhone XS is not doing the best out of all. It has still better standby drain than Note 9, but both Pixel 2 and 8+ are performing perfectly at 0% drain.

Test 4 — YouTube playback for 1 hour: Results

iPhone XS performs very well for video playback, XS Max and X are at same level, with the worst performers here being iPhone 7+ and Pixel 2. Note 9 and 8+ consume pretty much same battery in terms of raw mAh.

Test 5 — Gaming for 20 min (QHD on Note 9): Results

Quad HD does not make any huge impact on Note 9, it was not performing well before and is doing similar here. iPhone XS performs amazing — draining just 160 mAh battery.

iPhone XS Max and X are very much alike but Note 9 isn’t doing well at all, just like Pixel 2 and iPhone 8+. The reason why iPhone 7+ consumed too much is because it is getting closer to 0% than others.

Final Test 6 — gaming until fully drained: Results

The highlighted row on the top shows how long does it take to drain 1% in gaming (playing Temple Run). It may look like that Note 9 does the best at gaming with 4.6 minutes per 1% drain, however, PER MINUTE, iPhone XS uses least battery to game, so it’s more efficient. This is followed by 8+, XS Max, iPhone X and then Note 9. iPhone 7+ is very inefficient, just as Pixel 2 is for gaming.