We all want our phones to last a good long time. Nobody enjoys watching their smartphone battery drain too quickly. It turns out, a new piece of information from Europe could change how we think about phone durability. New data from the European Union’s energy labeling program suggests that Samsung Galaxy phones have batteries that can last twice as long as those in iPhones and Pixel devices.
New Rules for Phone Longevity
The European Union has been pushing for smartphones to have a longer useful life. One way they are doing this is through new energy labels. These labels show important details about how durable a phone is. This includes how well its battery holds up over time. It’s a big step towards helping people choose phones that really last.
This new system looks at “charge cycles.” A charge cycle happens every time you recharge your phone battery from empty to full. Even if you charge it halfway twice, that counts as one cycle. The EU now requires phone makers to tell us how many full charge cycles a battery can handle. This is before it loses a lot of its original capacity.
Samsung Leads the Pack in Battery Cycles
The official data is available on the European Product Registry for Energy Labelling (EPREL). And the numbers are quite interesting. Recent models from Google, like the Pixel 9 and Pixel 8a, claim their batteries can handle 1,000 charge cycles. Apple’s latest phones, including the iPhone 16 Pro Max, also state a 1,000-cycle durability.
But Samsung is doing something different. From their high-end Galaxy S25 to the more affordable Galaxy A56, Samsung smartphones are rated for 2,000 charge cycles. This means they are designed to last twice as long in terms of battery life compared to their main competitors. That’s a significant difference.
Other phone brands fall somewhere in the middle. For example, Nothing’s new phones are rated for 1,400 cycles. Motorola and Fairphone models typically range from 1,000 to 1,300 cycles. This just highlights how impressive Samsung’s 2,000-cycle rating truly is.
This new labeling system is a game-changer for people buying phones. For the first time, there’s an official way to compare how long a key part like the battery will last. It makes battery durability as important as camera quality or screen size when you’re picking a new phone. After all, a long-lasting battery often means a longer-lasting phone.
It’s still a bit of a mystery how Samsung managed to get double the battery life rating. The official numbers are out there. But we’re all waiting to see if this big advantage on paper really translates into twice the usable battery life in our daily lives. You can find these details and more at the European Product Registry for Energy Labelling (EPREL).