Battery life on the Samsung Galaxy S21+

The Battery life of the s21+ has a 4,800mAh battery, a slight but welcome upgrade over last year’s model’s 4,500mAh. In terms of sheer capacity (5,000mAh), the S21+ is much closer to the S21 Ultra than its more compact sister, the S21 (4,000mAh), s21+ battery life.

Even though there are numerous changes between the Plus and the Ultra (display resolution and technology, refresh rate handling), the Galaxy S21+ achieved the same Endurance rating as the S21 Ultra – a fantastic 114 hours.

They did not, however, arrive in the same manner. The S21+ outlasted the Ultra in video playback by precisely one hour, while it was suitable for 19 hours of video viewing in aeroplane mode.

The Plus couldn’t quite match the Ultra’s Wi-Fi web surfing performance, but it’s still impressive at over 14 hours. In these tests, the S21 provides an almost proportional gain in battery life – in fact, the S21figures +’s are even better than the battery capacity differential would suggest, and that’s even considering the Plus’s larger display.

The voice call result is also longer on Plus, though only by about 12%, and at 31 hours vs 27:30 hours, neither is likely to die on you just talking on it. The Ultra, on the other hand, is faster at 35:32h, but will you want to keep its 227-gram weight near to your ear for so long?

To put things in perspective, the OnePlus 8 Pro lasts about the same amount of time in phone conversations (28:35h) and video playback (18:03h) as the Galaxy S21+ but falls behind by 3 hours in web surfing (10:58h). Meanwhile, the iPhone 12 Pro has a total of 18:03 hours of voice calls (a full 13 hours short), 12:15 hours of web surfing (a less dramatic but still significant 1:40 hour gap), and 14:06 hours of video playback (about 5 hours less than the Galaxy).

Battery life

Our Galaxy S21+ battery testing is complete, and one major lesson, aside from the fact that the phone performs admirably in terms of durability, is that the S21 Ultra performs even better, for some reason.

The high-end Ultra model appears to have the largest battery and the same primary power draw improvements as the other two – 5nm Snapdragon 888 or Exynos 2100 processors with integrated 5nm 5G modems and new, more thrifty antenna materials.

However, a crucial component for longer battery life in Galaxy S21 series compared to the S20 models – a 1080p rather than 1440p display resolution – is missing from the equation on Ultra, so what happened?

8:27h on YouTube

10:50h of browsing at 120Hz

60Hz browsing time: 12:10h

6:05h of gaming at 120Hz

8:36h of gaming at 60Hz

With a 25W charger, 4800mAh can be charged for 70 minutes.

comparison

While one might anticipate the Ultra to last less than the S21+, which has the same battery capacity and a 1080p display, our battery benchmark testing revealed the exact opposite.
What’s going on? The S21 Ultra’s QHD display is the latest-gen economical LPTO kind, rather than the LTPS screen with static 120Hz refresh featured in the S20 Ultra. That alone would result in a 15-20% reduction in power draw.

The battery savings may be as significant as having a lower-resolution display when considering the more granular dynamic 10Hz-120Hz refresh rate that its latest-gen LTPO screen allows, compared to 48Hz-120Hz on the S21+.

That’s precisely what happens in our Galaxy S21+ vs S21 Ultra battery life comparison, as evidenced by our benchmark testing, with the S21 Ultra lasting even longer despite the S21+ having a lower-resolution screen and a somewhat smaller battery.

The S21 Ultra, on the other hand, has a different display technology and refresh rate control than the S21+, which could explain why it outlasts not only the S21 series but all of its competitors in terms of endurance. Surprisingly, the S21 Ultra also wins the fast charging round, as it charges a slightly larger battery in a slightly shorter amount of time with the same 25W charger, demonstrating once again that Samsung has “pulled out all stops” in designing its most spec’d-out phone to date.