There's a new long-lasting phone champ, and its the Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro. Even with a fast-refreshing screen, the new gaming phone excelled in our battery test, posting the best runtime we've seen in 5 years.
That's great news for gamers who can be guaranteed that the ROG Phone 6 Pro isn't going to give up the ghost during a marathon gaming session. But it's also encouraging for anyone who values battery life that even a phone with power-hungry features can figure out a way to keep the show going for hours on end.
Every smartphone Tom's Guide reviews goes through our custom battery test. We set the brightness of a fully charged phone's screen to 150 nits and then run a program that forces it to surf the web continuously over cellular until it runs out of power.
The average phone goes dead just shy of 10 hours, while the entries that wind up on our best phone battery life list need to hold out for 11.5 hours or more.
How'd the ROG Phone 6 Pro do? With its adaptive display enabled, Asus' phone managed to run for 15.5 hours before its battery ran out of juice. Keep in mind, the gaming phone's display can ramp up its refresh rate to 165Hz, which can really draw on a device's battery. That the ROG Phone 6 Pro could have display refreshing at up to 165Hz and still stay powered up for more than 15 hours is extremely impressive.
The result becomes even more impressive when we lock that refresh rate at 60Hz. With the less demanding refresh rate in place, the ROG Phone 6 Pro lasted 16 hours and 27 minutes.
How the ROG Phone 6 Pro compares to other long-lasting phones
The last time a phone lasted that long on a charge, it was another Asus handset that we tested five years ago. The Zenfone 3 Zoom held out for 16 hours and 49 minutes, though it's safe to say that phone didn't have face the power demands that the gaming-focused ROG Phone 6 Pro can.
The original Moto G Power from 2020 held out for 16 hours and 10 minutes, the only other phone we've tested to reach the 16-hour club. The 2022 edition of the Moto G Power lasts a little more than 13 hours while the Moto G Power 2021 previously topped our current battery champ list at 14 hours and 4 minutes.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Battery size | Battery life (Hrs:Mins) | Release date |
| Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro | 6,000 mAh | 15:30 (Adaptive), 16:27 (60Hz) | 2022 |
| Asus ZenFone 3 | 5,000 mAh | 16:49 | 2017 |
| Moto G Power | 5,000 mAh | 16:10 | 2020 |
| Moto G7 Power | 5,000 mAh | 15:35 | 2019 |
| Cat S41 | 5,000 mAh | 15:19 | 2017 |
| Asus ZenFone 6 | 5,000 maH | 15:01 | 2019 |
We cycle phones off our list of long-lasting devices after 18 months since most people would no longer shop for a phone that long in the tooth. So the current runner-up to the ROG Phone 6 Pro's record time is the RedMagic 6, another gaming phone from Nubia. At 13 hours and 20 minutes, its battery test result is more than 2 hours shorter than what the ROG Phone 6 Pro can do with its adaptive refresh rate enabled.
The ROG Phone 6 Pro also outperforms devices from the leading flagship phone makers, Apple and Samsung. The iPhone 13 Pro Max is the longest-lasting iPhone we've tested, with an impressive result of 12 hours and 16 minutes that's still more than 3 hours behind the ROG Phone 6 Pro's time.
All of Samsung's Galaxy S22 phones disappointed in our battery tests — the Galaxy S22 Ultra could only last more than 10 hours when we turned off its adaptive display — and the only Samsung handset on our best phone battery life list is the year-old Galaxy A52.
How the ROG Phone 6 Pro lasts so long
Certainly, you'd expect the ROG Phone 6 Pro to last a long time on a charge. Asus equipped the phone with a 6,000 mAh battery. The RedMagic 6 makes do with a 5,050 mAh cell, while the Moto G Power 2022's power pack is a little bit smaller at 5,000 mAh.
Still, the ROG Phone 6 Pro makes the most of that massive battery, and we think the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset powering the phone deserves a lot of the credit. Chip maker Qualcomm says its new silicon is more power-efficient than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 system-on-chip that preceded it, and the test results with the ROG Phone 6 Pro certainly bear that out.
Just as important as the ROG Phone 6 Pro's long battery life is the fact that it doesn't take that long to charge. Thanks to the phone's 65W wired charging speed, we got a drained ROG Phone 6 back to an 81% charge after half-an-hour.
You may not be interested in a gaming phone like the Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro. But the device's stellar battery life certainly makes it a phone worth taking notice of.
