Introducing: GSMArena Battery Life Test 2.0 and the new Active Use Score
It was 12 years ago on this day that we introduced our original Battery life test. The first-ever device to get the GSMArena Endurance Rating was the Nokia N9. To give you an idea of how long ago that was, it was the same year the iPhone 4S was introduced, and Apple brought Siri for the very first time.
Back then, the landscape of mobile technology was vastly different. Social networks on mobile were in their infancy, 4G wasn't widespread, and online videos weren't as popular as today.
Our battery test reflected those times - focusing on calls, web browsing, local video watching, and idle standby to create the Endurance rating you all know. For 12 years, this metric served as a reliable benchmark in our reviews.
However, technology and usage patterns evolve. Today, we're excited to unveil our Battery Life test 2.0.
Our new battery test setup rates how long the phone's battery would last if we were to use it without giving a break. This revamped approach better captures the current trends in smartphone usage, and our new tests are better tuned to test the most recent hardware.
You can learn more about the technicalities of how we test here. Shout out to our partners at SmartViser for making possible the necessary automations for our editorial battery test protocols.
New and updated tests
- Call test: The Call test remains a staple in our battery tests. Now running over a 4G network (with VoLTE), the outcome remains largely consistent with our past tests.
- Web browsing test: Updated with a new set of modern web pages with scrolling and touch input every 3 seconds, the web browsing test now simulates real-life use much better. This revamped test also accounts for social network app usage as it produces identical scores in our testing.
- Video streaming test: We've moved away from local video file playback and we stream directly from YouTube. This updated test also accounts for short video app usage (e.g., TikTok).
- Game test: A new addition to our test suite, the Gaming test is where we loop a popular 3D game with an above-average GPU load.
The Active Use Score is here
These new battery tests combine into our new Active Use Score, which is an estimate of how long the battery will last if you use the device with a mix of all four activities. The Active Use Score you are seeing by default uses a balanced usage mix of our own, putting a slight emphasis on Web and Video.
One exciting feature is that you can adjust the Active Use Score based on your usage patterns and preferences. This personalized metric is saved persistently for your browser, and unless you use the Reset button on the widget below, you will be seeing your preferred usage mix in all battery tests you check out in the future.
Your customized Active Use Score will also appear at the bottom of the specs pages of all phones we've tested under the new test setup.
We are discontinuing the Endurance rating, and the new name more clearly conveys the change in our approach to battery testing.
We've already begun retesting devices with this new methodology. For a comprehensive list of results so far, head this way.