Galaxy S23 vs. Galaxy S22 battery life compared: Which phone lasts longer?

This is part of the story Samsung eventCNET’s collection of news, tips and advice on Samsung’s most popular products.

My biggest complaint about last year Galaxy S22 Its battery does not last long on a single charge. Fortunately, the recently introduced Samsung has addressed that shortcoming Galaxy S23It includes a larger battery and a more energy-efficient processor.

The Galaxy S23 It doesn’t offer record-breaking battery life, but it’s enough of an improvement to make me comfortable using it on a busy day without carrying the charger. That’s more than I can say for the Galaxy S22 Battery worries leave me Long days away from the power station.

Small Android phones like Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S22 It can be hard to come by, which is why I’m glad Samsung did it with its 6.1-inch flagship phone.

The Galaxy S23’s larger battery makes a difference

Samsung The battery capacity of the Galaxy S23 has increased by 200 mAh compared to the Galaxy S22. The new phone has a 3,900-mAh battery, while last year’s device had a 3,700-mAh capacity. But this is not the only factor affecting battery life.

The Galaxy S23 family runs on one version Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 An optimized processor especially for the Galaxy S23 series. Samsung claims this new processor brings better power efficiency, which contributes to the phone’s longer battery life.

Even after spending some time with the Galaxy S23, these changes are noticeable. The Galaxy S22’s battery sometimes drops to the 30s or 40s by 9pm after a long day at the office. I once had to borrow a co-worker’s charger while attending an all-day work event because I was worried I wouldn’t make it to the evening. (Always on display turned off and I set the refresh rate to constant instead of adaptive).

My experience with the Galaxy S23 has thankfully been very different so far. When I took the phone off the charger at 10 a.m. on a recent Sunday, it had 64% battery left at 12:36 p.m. However, it should be noted that I didn’t use my phone very often that afternoon. I was spending time with my family throughout the day, so I mostly kept my phone in my pocket, only occasionally pulling it out to check my texts or take a photo.

But even on a busy day, the Galaxy S23 outlasts the Galaxy S22’s battery. After a day of running benchmarks, taking lots of photos, recording videos and streaming YouTube videos as part of my review test, I still had 46% of my battery left at 9:45pm, which isn’t so bad when you consider the Galaxy S22 at times. . By 9pm after using the phone heavily throughout the day its battery had 30% to 40% left. I also had the Adaptive Refresh Rate setting turned on for most of my time with the Galaxy S23.

To further test the battery, I put each phone through a 45-minute endurance test and a three-hour battery drain test. During the 45-minute test, I continuously streamed videos on YouTube, made video calls, played mobile games and scrolled through social media feeds to see how much these everyday tasks would take a toll on each phone’s battery. For the three-hour test, I streamed YouTube with 100% display brightness and checked the battery percentage every hour to see how much it drained.

Unsurprisingly, the Galaxy S23 beats the Galaxy S22 in both tests, as you can see in the table below.

It’s important to remember that battery life will always vary depending on how you use your device. Factors like screen brightness and the types of apps you use can affect battery life, so your experience may not directly reflect mine. For example, while I sometimes struggled to get through a full day using the Galaxy S22, I was able to save around 60 to 70% of my battery by 9pm with the always-on display turned off on days when I spent a lot of time at home.

How to get more battery life on your Galaxy S22

If you own a Galaxy S22 and struggle with battery life, there are a few steps you can take to increase the longevity of your device. First, try lowering the screen brightness by swiping down from the top of the screen to access your phone’s quick settings menu.

Make sure the Adaptive Brightness setting is turned off to prevent your phone from automatically increasing brightness when needed. While this is a useful feature under normal circumstances, you don’t want to increase the brightness when you’re trying to conserve battery life. Open your Galaxy S22’s Settings menu, choose the Display option, and make sure the switch next to Adaptive Brightness is turned on.

If you’re trying to extend battery life, it’s a good idea to try disabling the Adaptive Refresh Rate and Always On Display settings, which you can change in the Settings menu.

Samsung devices have a power saving mode that disables certain settings that make the battery last longer. Open the Settings menu, select the Battery and device care option, and tap Battery to access it. From this battery menu, you can also control battery usage for apps you don’t use often.

These tips will work on the Galaxy S23, which also has a light performance mode to prioritize battery life and cooling performance over high performance. To enable this, open the Galaxy S23’s Settings menu, tap Battery & device care, and select Battery. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and choose the More battery settings option. From there, you should see a field called Performance Profile, which you can tap to toggle between Standard and Light. (During my time with the Galaxy S23, I had it set to standard).

If this is not enough, you can try to buy A portable charger or power bank Upgrade your device on the go.

With its new $700 price tag, the Galaxy S22 is an attractive alternative to the $800 Galaxy S23. Keep in mind that you’ll sacrifice some battery life to get that cheap price.