One of the primary factors a user takes into consideration when purchasing a smartphone is its battery life support. Microsoft's new kids on the block i.e. the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL smartphones boast robust batteries, but how capable are the devices?
GSMArena conducted a battery life comparison of the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL smartphones, both of which sport the Quad HD AMOLED panels.
While the 5.2-inch Lumia 950 houses a Snapdragon 808 hexa-core processor, the 5.7-inch Lumia XL boasts a Snapdragon 810 octa-core processor. On paper, it would seem that the newer Snapdragon 810 chip powering the bigger 5.7-inch model would be more powerful of the two, but did this translate to the physical tests as well?
The Lumia 950 houses a 3,000mAh battery which is smaller than the 3,340mAh battery on the Lumia 950 XL. The latter's battery offers 10 percent more power. The Lumia 950 XL's battery is one of the biggest around and pales only next to the 3,400mAh battery on the Lumia 1520.
The battery comparisons revealed that the Lumia 950XL easily trumped the Lumia 950 when it comes to talk time support on 3G and web browsing.
"The Lumia 950 XL posted great and very respectable 17 hours endurance on the 3G talk time test, doubling the Lumia 950 score. The web browsing on the Lumia 950 is just average at 7 and a half hours, but the Lumia 950 XL lasted some 3 hours more for a total runtime of 10 hours and 50 minutes," says GSMArena.
The video playback offered by the Lumia 950 XL on a single battery charge was 10 hours and 38 minutes. The Lumia 950, by comparison, offered 9 hours and 40 minutes.
Therefore, as the comparison shows, a newer Snapdragon 810 processor could potentially be the difference between the two smartphones' performance.
However, while both the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL performed well, the devices' performance pales compared to some Android-powered handsets as shown by the graph.
The standby time offered by the duo is similar to that from other Windows Phones, many with smaller batteries. Both the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL could last only for a week on a single battery charge when left idle, a dismal performance for smartphones with a big battery size. This aspect suggests that the Windows Phone operating system could use some improvements.
The Lumia 950 garnered an overall rating of 48h i.e. the time the battery should last if one makes hour-long calls, browse the web or play videos for the same period in a day.
Per the publication, the Lumia 950 emerges "average" on the different tests and the standby endurance. The Lumia 950 XL, on the other hand, performed a tad better, scoring a 62h rating. With an overall average score, this is not impressive for a phablet.
