Editors' Note: Update March 1 with additional anecdotal information about the Galaxy S10 Plus' battery performance.
At 4,100 mAh, the Galaxy S10 Plus has one of the biggest batteries you’ll find in a smartphone, and Samsung really makes the most of it. Based on our testing, this is one of the longest-lasting phones ever and a big improvement over the Galaxy S9 Plus and S8 Plus.
To test the S10 Plus’ endurance we ran the Tom’s Guide Battery Test, which involves continuous web surfing over 4G LTE with the screen set to 150 nits of brightness. We use T-Mobile’s network to be consistent from phone to phone.
Galaxy S10 Plus Battery Life vs the Competition
The S10 Plus lasted a class-leading 12 hours and 35 minutes. That’s a big jump up from the Galaxy S9 Plus’ runtime of 10:59 with its 3,500 mAh battery. The Galaxy S8 Plus lasted 11 hours and 4 minutes with its 3,500 mAh battery.
Among Samsung phones, the Galaxy Note 9 and its 4,000 mAh battery had been the champ at 11:26, but the S10 Plus is the new winner.
Samsung’s phone also outlasts its top competitors by a considerable margin. The iPhone XS Max endured for 10:38 on our test, while the Pixel 3 XL wasn’t even in the same ballpark at 9:30.
MORE: Galaxy S10 Plus Review: Pros and Cons
Other top Android phones pale in comparison to the Galaxy S10 Plus. The OnePlus 6T (3,700 mAh battery) lasted 10:23 and the LG G7 mustered only 8:35 with its 3,000 mAh battery. Despite having a 4,100 mAh battery that’s even bigger than the Galaxy S10 Plus’, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro lasted just 10:09.
| Phone | Battery Life (hrs:mins) |
| Galaxy S10 Pus | 12:35 |
| Galaxy Note 9 | 11:26 |
| Galaxy S8 Plus | 11:04 |
| Galaxy S9 Plus | 10:59 |
| iPhone XS Max | 10:38 |
| OnePlus 6T | 10:23 |
| Huawei Mate 20 Pro | 10:09 |
| Google Pixel 3 XL | 9:30 |
| LG G7 | 8:35 |
There are some smartphones that last longer on a charge than the Galaxy S10 Plus, though they’re not tier-one flagships. For example, the Cat S48c is a rugged phone that lasted 13 hours and 8 minutes. Opening up our comparison to every phone we've tested over the last year-and-a-half or so, the Galaxy S10 Plus currently ranks sixth on our list of longest-lasting smartphones, and the phones ahead of it are either durable phones built specifically to last a long time on a charge or budget and midtier phones with big batteries. (One exception is Huawei's Mate 10 Pro: it lasted longer on a charge, but that phone also hit the U.S. more than a year ago.)
With the capacity of the Galaxy S10 Plus' battery, you should be able to get through a full workday and then some with this new Samsung phone. After using the phone for taking photos, checking emails, listening to music and playing some games starting at 7:00 a.m. on a typical day, we were down to 17 percent at 8 p.m., which is very good endurance. Add in Samsung’s Wireless PowerShare feature — which lets you use the back of the S10 Plus to charge other phones and gadgets like Samsung’s Galaxy Buds — and you've got a device with some impressive power management skills.
We will be updating this article with lab results for the Galaxy S10 once we get that phone in for review. For now, the S10 Plus is an endurance champ, though we'd still recommend power users pick up one of our hand tested best portable charger picks.
