The iPhone SE 2020 has been getting a lot of attention lately for packing some of the same features found in Apple's flagship iPhone 11 into a sub-$400 phone. But the iPhone SE is not the only low-cost smartphone that offers standout features at a bargain price. [The $249 Moto G Power smartphone, with its high-capacity 5,000 mAh battery, took first place in the cell phone battery life rankings.

In our smartphone battery test, we had the Moto G Power last 16 hours and 10 minutes while surfing the web using LTE until the battery ran out. This is the longest battery life in over two years of smartphone testing and the best battery life for a cell phone today. (Back in the day, the Asus ZenFone 3 surpassed the 16-hour mark in our tests, but good luck trying to sell that three-year-old phone.)

We are still testing the iPhone SE battery to come up with official numbers, but anecdotally, we haven't seen anything close to the endurance of the Moto G Power. Apple has not disclosed the size of the battery, but the teardown of the iPhone SE suggests that this new model has a 1,821 mAh power pack.

Furthermore, Apple expects battery life to be similar to the iPhone 8. And when we tested it in late 2017, the phone lasted 9 hours and 54 minutes. That's an average length for a modern smartphone and only seven hours short of the Moto G Power's length.

There is no need to feel bad that the iPhone SE falls far short of the Moto G Power's longevity standards. Many phones, inexpensive or otherwise, have a hard time matching this mark. Of the phones released in the past 18 months, the closest to the current list is the Moto G7 Power (successor to the Moto G Power), which lasted 15 hours and 35 minutes. The next closest is the Asus ZenFone 6, which is twice the price of Moto's new budget phone.

Of course, there are other reasons to get a phone besides battery life: in the case of the iPhone SE 2020, you pay only $399 for a phone with the same pace-setting A13 Bionic processor as the much more expensive iPhone 11 lineup. The iPhone SE also supports wireless charging and can compete with the best budget camera phones even with only one rear lens. These are features that the Moto G Power cannot match.

However, the Moto G Power has some unique features that make it attractive to bargain hunters, besides its spectacular battery life and sub-$300 price. Performance is good for a phone in this price range, and Motorola's clean implementation of Android continues to impress. At a time when people may be hesitant to pay big bucks for a new phone, the race to produce the best inexpensive phone seems to be heating up.