You Don't Need a Bigger Phone Battery, Here's Why

howtogeek.com:

Phones today don't seem to hold a charge much longer than old ones. Phones have gotten much better in many other ways, so what gives?

Maybe, just maybe, battery life isn't all that important?

Wait, hear me out! Most people don't actually need a phone with a giant battery or days of battery life. Our current phones are doing just fine.

Phones With Long Battery Life Are Out There

First, phones with really long battery life do exist. This isn't a technological issue that we don't know how to solve. If you stick a large battery in a phone with a weak CPU and a low-res display, it will last for days. You could stretch that puppy out for weeks with the right configuration.

At Mobile World Congress 2024, Energizer showed off a phone that it claimed could run for 94 days. That's around three months of use. The catch? The phone is the size of the external battery bank that many people carry around to charge their phones. The last time Energizer tried this, the effort failed on Indiegogo with under 20 backers and barely 1% of its goal.

To be clear, there are more practical phones with reasonable form factors. Extended battery life is basically the Moto G Power's entire shtick. Quite frankly, this is an area where budget phones often outperform flagships. If your device has a slow CPU, a decent-sized battery, and you aren't trying to push it that hard, then it's likely to last several days. The question is, are any of these the phones you want?

Why Hasn't Battery Life Improved Much?

We know how to make our phones last a long time. The problem is, we also want our phones to do so much more. I don't just want my phone to place calls and send picture messages—I want my phone to replace my laptop. Our phones have slayed the digital camera, and they're coming for our game consoles. All of these things have battery life measured in hours, not days.

Imagine if next year's Snapdragon processor wasn't any more powerful, but it was more efficient. In terms of hardware