Battery Life
In terms of battery life, the Axon 30 Ultra features a 4600mAh battery. Combined with the lower resolution 1080p screen, in theory we should be seeing quite good results out of the phone, but there’s also the fact that it has a more power hungry Snapdragon 888 powering it, so results could end up anywhere.
In the 60Hz web browsing results, the Axon 30 Ultra ends up in a very disappointing spot at 11.76 hours. I say it’s disappointing because of the juxtaposition to the Mi 11 which has the exact same battery capacity, the same SoC, but features a 1440p 120Hz display. At 60Hz, in theory the Axon 30 Ultra should have been able to outlast the Mi 11, but yet it only does so by a few minutes which is far below expectations.
One of the biggest mysteries in this year’s flagship devices continues to be abnormally high baseline power consumption characteristics of almost all non-Samsung non-Apple phones, and the Axon 30 Ultra also suffers from such, dragging down its overall device efficiency.
I had looking into the base power consumption of the 144Hz mode, and the mode had a large delta compared to the 120Hz mode. ZTE even goes so far to say in the display settings that the 144Hz mode drains battery significantly faster. Given the negatives and very little positives to use the mode over the 120Hz mode, I see no reason for people to ever chose it.
At 120Hz, the Axon 30 Ultra naturally incurs an efficiency hit, and again here the most interesting comparison is against the Mi 11 – which this time actually lasts longer than the Axon, which is sad given that the phone is driving a higher resolution display.
In PCMark, the Axon 30 Ultra does averagely good. Oddly enough here it manages to beat the Mi 11 more consistently as it becomes less display power bound in the test.
Generally speaking, the Axon 30 Ultra should have average to good battery life. The phone does not have the latest generation components such as a power efficient display to compete against more expensive competitor devices, but it’s also not outright bad and generally in line with what we’ve seen with gen-1 or gen-2 phones.
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