There were so many questions that needed to be answered about Samsung’s newest Galaxy S6 Edge which is becoming so popular that Samsung may have to increase production. One very important piece of information was about battery life. Samsung not only used a smallish 2600mAh battery in their new device, but they also chose to make it non-removable – a first for a Galaxy S series flagship. Add to that fact this battery had to operate a 5.1-inch QHD display with a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels and 577 pixels-per-inch (PPI). That is a lot to ask of this new battery from Samsung, that also claims that you can add up to four hours of battery usage with a quick 10-minute charge. Our source recently put the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge through its rigorous battery test to determine just how well the device performed. Did Samsung do their homework and provide us with a battery worthy of its flagship status?
We are happy to report that the answer is a resounding, yes. As you can see from the Battery Benchmarks below, the Galaxy S6 Edge came in with 8 hours and 11 minutes of battery life…which is rated excellent by their standards…only the Galaxy Note 4 and Sony Xperia Z3 beat it out. The test tries to replicate an average user’s usage pattern throughout a typical day. Normally, to ensure that all is equal, they will set all of the displays to 200 nits of brightness, however, the Galaxy S6 Edge can only be manually adjusted to 180 nits, which gives it a slight ‘edge’ over the competition, but not enough to discount the results you see below.
The other test is used to determine how long it takes to charge the battery from zero to full – where 200 versus 180 nits would have no bearing – and once again the Galaxy S6 Edge pulled down an excellent 83 minutes. As a comparison, the iPhone 6 takes 147 minutes and the Xperia Z3 takes 235 minutes. The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 was close at 95 minutes, but then it has a larger battery, just as the Galaxy S6, with a 50mAh smaller battery than the Galaxy S6 Edge, came in at 78 minutes.
It certainly looks like Samsung was true to their word about the Galaxy S6 Edge having excellent battery life. They claim that their processor, new memory and the battery itself were all designed for optimum battery life and this latest battery test backs up those claims.