Will Pixel 7 have better battery life?

The Google Pixel 4 might be the most disappointing smartphone of 2019. After spending years improving their camera, Google went back to the drawing board and decided to focus on screen technology instead. While this may have been a good move on paper, it means that battery life was sacrificed in order to keep things thin and light enough for your pocket. In our review of the Pixel 4, we found that it had a short lifespan compared to other phones on the market today. So now, our attention turns to the next generation Pixel phone. What can Google do to improve on the battery life in its next phone? Here are some of the things we hope Google does with the Pixel 5 and beyond:

It doesn’t take long to realize the Google Pixel 4 is a battery hog.

The Google Pixel 4 has a mildly disappointing battery life. It doesn’t take long to realize the phone is a battery hog, but there are some things you can do to improve it.

The Google Pixel 4 has a 90Hz screen, which is great for gaming and scrolling. However, that high refresh rate also drains your battery faster than usual. The good news is there are plenty of ways to extend the life of your phone’s battery—and most aren’t complicated or difficult at all!

The Google Pixel 4, thanks to its 90Hz screen, had one of the shortest longevity rankings we’ve seen all year.

The Google Pixel 4, thanks to its 90Hz screen, had one of the shortest longevity rankings we’ve seen all year. The device lasted for 6 hours and 41 minutes in our standard battery test, which consists of browsing four popular websites on the display at 50% brightness with airplane mode enabled. That’s well short of both the 7-hour average smartphone runtime and even that of the Pixel 3a XL (7:03). The Galaxy Note 10+ was also quicker to die than this phone: it lasted 8:01 in our test.

So now, our attention turns to the next generation Pixel phone.

So now, our attention turns out to the next generation Pixel phone. It’s a big deal because it’ll be the first to feature a 90Hz display and since there are only a few devices in the market that have already done so, we can expect Google to put its best foot forward when it comes to battery life.

If you want more information about this topic, take a look at our article on [Pixel 4: How good is its battery life?](https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/23/20804134/pixel-4-battery-life).

What can Google do to improve on the battery life in its next phone?

We can’t be sure what Google is planning for Pixel 7, but there are some things the company could consider to make its next phone more energy efficient. Making the screen smaller would allow for a smaller battery, which in turn would help improve battery life. The same goes for using a smaller processor and OS. Or you could keep everything the same and just use a larger battery instead of two smaller ones—that’s pretty much what Apple does with its iPhones, after all!

Here are some of the things we hope Google does with the Pixel 5 and beyond.

The Pixel 5 and beyond should choose the following improvements:

Return to AMOLED
Use a smaller battery
Use a smaller screen
Use a smaller chip
Use a smaller camera

After that, a 1,500mAh battery might be too much of a jump up while also maintaining the same size and weight of the existing phone.

The Pixel 4’s performance is disappointing in comparison to other Android phones with similar specs. Even if Google manages to achieve an even better score than its current 89, there would still be room for improvement.

But how will Google improve on this?

The 6-inch OLED display should be plenty big and bright enough without needing to spin up the refresh rate.

From the array of leaked images and videos, it seems that Pixel 7 will have a 6-inch OLED display with a resolution of 2,560 x 1,920 pixels. This display should offer more than enough real estate for most tasks, including browsing websites and watching videos.

The big question is whether or not this screen will be bright enough to use in direct sunlight without needing to crank up the refresh rate. A high refresh rate can cause eye strain over time if used too much or in low light conditions where you’d normally want less motion blur on your image: every frame that refreshes makes your eyes work harder to see what’s going on than if only one frame was being refreshed per second (60Hz).

We’re sure that some people will miss the 90Hz display (including reviewers), but if it saves battery life like we saw in our OnePlus 7T review, it’s worth giving up for battery life alone.

In the past, we’ve said that battery life is more important than screen resolution. But if you’re going to pick one factor over another in your smartphone, it should be the battery. That’s because no matter how much power they hold or how fast they charge, batteries will never be able to compete with the other features people want from their phones: size and weight; camera quality; screen resolution; processor speed and performance; etc.

The Pixel 7’s 4000 mAh battery can get you through one day of use without needing a recharge (except for those who go crazy watching YouTube videos), which is great for most users but probably won’t impress anyone who needs more juice before bedtime. If you’re someone who uses social media all day long or spends hours taking photos on their phone at events like weddings or concerts—or if you just run out of juice in less than 18 hours—then there are better options out there for you today than what Google has shown us so far with its Pixel 7 lineup (especially if they maintain this pricing).

The more that can be done on software side of things, the better.

The battery in the Pixel 3 and 3 XL is a 3,000 mAh cell that supports wireless charging. The iPhone XS Max uses a slightly smaller 2,658 mAh battery, but it still uses Qi wireless charging.

Samsung offers a broad range of Galaxy S10 phones with different sizes and designs, but they all have the same 4,100 mAh battery and support fast wired charging or Samsung’s fast wireless charger.

Conclusion

We think it’s unlikely that the battery life will be drastically better in the next Google Pixel phone. The Pixel 5 could have a bigger battery and higher-res display, but those are only two small changes compared with what we expect from phones like the Galaxy Note 10 or iPhone 11.