Galaxy Note 9 vs iPhone XS Max: Which Phone’s Battery Lasts Longer?

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The iPhones aren’t known for a great battery life. Customers had high expectations from the iPhone XS Max as it has a bigger battery and far more energy -efficient A12 Bionic chipset based on the 7nm manufacturing process. But the XS Max owners are going to feel disappointed (or jealous) once they see the battery life of Samsung Galaxy Note 9. Folks at YouTube channel PhoneBuff conducted a thorough Galaxy Note 9 vs iPhone XS Max battery test to find out which of the two ultra-premium phablets has better battery life.

Galaxy Note 9 vs iPhone XS Max battery test conducted using robotic arms

Many believe that Apple’s decision to use its own software on its devices means tighter integration of the two, which should lead to better battery life. That may be true to some extent but it was not enough to beat the Galaxy Note 9’s giant 4,000mAh battery. The Galaxy Note 9 vs iPhone XS Max battery test proves you can’t ignore a larger battery capacity.

Last month, PhoneBuff conducted the XS Max vs Note 9 speed test, which showed the flagship iPhone beating its rival. The test was conducted using robotic arms to accurately represent their performance. PhoneBuff has used robotic arms for the Galaxy Note 9 vs iPhone XS Max battery test as well. For the test, the display brightness, audio volume, and other settings were kept identical on both devices for a fair comparison.

The test comprised of an hour-long voice call, an hour of email browsing, texting, watching YouTube videos, using social media, gaming, and other tasks that we do on our smartphones on an average day. PhoneBuff conducted the same test twice and the results were the same.

The iPhone XS Max showed some resilience during the hour-long phone call. It lost only 3% battery during the call compared to 5% by the Galaxy Note 9. But the Samsung flagship did a far better job than its rival in everything else. When the XS Max died, the Galaxy Note 9 still had 37% battery remaining. The XS Max packs a 3,174mAh battery, which is about 20% smaller than Note 9’s 4,000mAh pack.

Apple’s highly advanced A12 Bionic chip failed to close the gap, at least in terms of battery life. Ideally, things should have ended up in a tie as the A12 is a 7nm processor compared to the 10nm Snapdragon 845 used in the Note 9.

If you are a big Apple fan, this Galaxy Note 9 vs iPhone XS Max battery test cannot convince you to switch to the Note 9. But if you are OS-agnostic and battery life is an important aspect for you, you might be interested in the Galaxy Note 9. Depending on the use cases, the XS Max battery could be sufficient for a lot of people. But if you use intensive apps such as games and social media and still want all-day battery life, the Note 9 could be a great choice.

Flagship iPhone is still the king in performance

The A12 processor shows its true capabilities in speed tests. Folks at Apple Insider recently pitted the Galaxy Note 9 against XS Max on benchmark tests. The Note 9 runs the aging Snapdragon 845 chipset with 6GB RAM. You can also choose to buy the 8GB RAM variant at an additional price. The Snapdragon 845 is an octa-core chip with a 2.8GHz clock speed. It is paired with the Adreno 630 GPU.

In contrast, the XS Max packs only 4GB RAM with the A12 processor. The A12 has six cores – four efficiency cores and two performance cores – and a 2.49GHz clock speed. The chipset is paired with a quad-core GPU. On Geekbench 4, the XS Max scored 4,803 points in single-core and 11,448 points in multi-core tests. The Note 9 could muster only 2,451 points in single-core and 8,830 points in multi-core tests.

In Geekbench graphics tests, the XS Max outperformed the Note 9 again, scoring 22,527 points versus 13,980 points for the Note 9. By comparison, last year’s iPhone X had scored 15,301 on the same test. Even on AnTuTu where Samsung devices tend to dominate, the XS Max scored an impressive 364,287 points. The Note 9 lagged far behind at 279,773 points. Apple Insider said the aging Snapdragon 845 was holding the Note 9 back.

The iPhone XS Max starts at $1,099 for 64GB and goes all the way up to $1,449 for the 512GB model. The Note 9 costs $1,000 for 6GB RAM/128GB storage option and $1,249 for 8GB RAM/512GB storage variant.

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