Battery life is not a lot of an issue on telephones any longer, and most telephones I examined in 2024 — together with price range gadgets — managed to simply final a day. Foldables often lag behind sweet bar telephones, however even on gadgets just like the Honor Magic V3, I managed to get a day’s price of use more often than not.
Hardwired
In Hardwired, AC Senior Editor Harish Jonnalagadda delves into all issues {hardware}, together with telephones, audio merchandise, storage servers, and routers.
There are thrilling adjustments coming to Android gadgets in 2025 that ought to ship noticeable features in battery life. Most flagships I used this 12 months got here with 5500mAh batteries, and I managed to get a day and a half out of the likes of the OnePlus 12, Vivo X100 Professional, X100 Extremely, Discover X7 Extremely, and the Magic 6 Professional.
With 2025 flagships, manufacturers are growing battery sizes to go as much as 6000mAh. The OnePlus 13 and Vivo X200 Professional include 6000mAh batteries, with the Magic 7 Professional that includes a 5850mAh unit, the Xiaomi 15 Professional touting an enormous 6100mAh cell and the iQOO 13 going as much as 6150mAh.
What’s attention-grabbing about this shift is that even smaller gadgets are getting in on the motion, with the Xiaomi 15 that includes a 5400mAh battery — up from 4610mAh on the Xiaomi 14 — the Discover X8 getting a 5610mAh unit and Vivo’s diminutive X200 Professional Mini choosing up a 5700mAh cell.
The explanation behind this improve? The change to silicon-carbon battery tech. At a high-level overview, the batteries on these gadgets nonetheless have lithium-based cells, however they make the most of a silicon carbide anode.
Often, lithium-ion batteries have a lithium steel oxide that acts because the cathode, with graphite or one other by-product or carbon performing because the anode. With silicon-carbon batteries, the cathode continues to be the identical, however the anode comprises a combination of silicon and graphite, and this unlocks a bunch of advantages.
By including silicon to the combo, you get batteries with a lot higher density and better resilience in opposition to excessive climate. Honor showcased this to good impact on the Magic 6 Professional, with the gadget holding its cost even in -20 levels Celsius.
As silicon-based anodes have a lot better density, we get telephones with considerably larger batteries with none noticeable distinction in measurement or weight. The OnePlus 13 features a 6000mAh battery — 600mAh greater than the OnePlus 12 — however it’s thinner and 7g lighter. The identical is true of all 2025 flagships that use silicon-carbon battery tech.
Aside from the benefits round density and efficiency in inclement climate, silicon-carbon batteries ought to have higher sturdiness, so battery degradation will not be as noticeable even after prolonged use.
This change has additionally led to a change within the development of the battery itself; most telephones as of late use a double-cell construction to maximise quick charging, however due to the elevated density, silicon-carbon batteries are made out a single cell, so they will not cost as quick.
The OnePlus 13 has a 36-minute quoted charging time to 100%, with the OnePlus 12 in a position to do the identical in 26 minutes. Clearly, the OnePlus 13 has a much bigger battery, so it’s going to take longer to cost, but it surely’s telling that it would not fairly hit the identical figures as final 12 months’s gadget. Having stated that, the minute distinction in charging instances is well offset by all the opposite features.
Whereas the tech is making its option to different producers now, Honor has been utilizing it to nice impact for 2 years, and the China-only Magic 5 Professional, Magic 6 Professional, Magic V2, and the current Magic V3 all use a silicon-based anode to ship higher density and effectivity.
It is good to see different Chinese language producers combine the tech in their very own gadgets, and it is going to be attention-grabbing to see if it trickles right down to mid-range gadgets over the course of 2025. Mixed with the features on provide with the Snapdragon 8 Elite and MediaTek Dimensity 9400, 2025 could be a terrific 12 months for telephone upgrades.
That stated, not all producers are getting in on the motion. Samsung is not possible to make use of the battery tech on the Galaxy S25 collection, and I do not see Apple or Google making the change both. These three manufacturers are on the backside finish of the size on the subject of battery innovation — whether or not it is densities or charging tech — so should you’re trying to improve to a telephone that makes use of the newest battery tech, you will have to go along with a Chinese language model.
