One of the most anticipated questions before the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro hit store shelves today (October 12) was about battery life: the Pixel 7 struggled with battery life, but will the new Pixel hold a charge longer than the previous model?

We now have the answer to that question.

In both our Pixel 8 review and our Pixel 8 Pro review, we ran battery tests on each phone. And while the new models outperformed the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro in terms of long-lasting charge, they did not quite meet the standards set by phones in the same price range. While better than many recent Pixels, the new Pixel 8 model has a long way to go if it wants to rank in our best smartphone battery life list.

For more on the Pixel 8's battery test results and how it compares to other devices, see.

As part of the way Tom's Guide tests and reviews smartphones, we put each device through a battery test. We run a script that sets the screen brightness to 150 nits and allows the device to surf the Internet continuously over a cellular connection. We then measure the time it takes for the cellular phone to turn off.

Whenever possible, run this test multiple times and average the results. For phones with displays that have variable refresh rates, test with the default refresh rate enabled and the screen set to the standard 60 Hz. (In general, higher refresh rates tend to drain more power from the phone and shorten battery life, but some devices manage that feature better than others.)

Smartphones in our tests averaged slightly less than 10 hours. Phones with exceptional battery life last for more than 11.5 hours.

Not only did the Pixel 7 fall well short of that 11.5 hours, it also failed to achieve the average smartphone time in last year's test; the Pixel 7 was particularly disappointing, with a result of 7 hours and 13 minutes when the display was set to a 90 Hz refresh rate. the Pixel 7 Pro fared better, but with a 120 Hz refresh rate enabled, the time was 8 hours and 4 minutes, more than 1.5 hours short of the smartphone's average result.

You can imagine why we were so enthralled to see if the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro could top these test results. Google's Pixel phones have proven to be a worthy alternative to Apple and Samsung's leading smartphones in many ways, but battery life is not one of them, especially since the switch to the Tensor chipset. If our tests show better results, it will give us another reason to recommend these phones besides their excellent cameras and AI-powered features.

Google did not give us much of a reason to expect a significant improvement in battery life: the Pixel 8's 4,575 mAH is slightly larger than the Pixel 7's 4,355 mAH. The battery size difference between the Pixel 8 Pro and Pixel 7 Pro is more modest, 5,050 mAH in the new model compared to 5,000 mAH previously. Therefore, the new model's significant increase in battery life will depend on the increased power efficiency of the Tensor G3.

Whatever the cause, something has certainly improved between the Pixel 7 and Pixel 8. Google's standard flagship logged 9 hours and 50 minutes in our tests, which is more than two hours better than what we saw on the Pixel 7. That's still a few minutes shy of the average smartphone's usage time, but long enough to consider the Pixel 8 an average smartphone. (These results were recorded with the Pixel 8's refresh rate set to 60Hz; we are still testing to see what happens when the refresh rate is set to 120Hz. )

The Pixel 8 Pro also improved significantly from its predecessor, with a time of 10 hours and 3 minutes, which is slowly above the smartphone's average time. More importantly, it is about 2 hours better than the time put out by the Pixel 7 Pro under similar circumstances.

In other words, if you were expecting the Pixel's battery life to improve year after year, that's exactly what happened. The only problem is that there are other smartphones besides the Pixel 8 model, and they tend to last longer than Google's phones.

The iPhone 15, which is about the same size as the Pixel 8 and $100 more expensive, lasted up to 11 hours and 5 minutes in battery tests. The Galaxy S23 did not fare as well, but its 10 hours and 27 minutes was still about 30 minutes longer than the time recorded by the Pixel 8. The Galaxy S23 also held up for this time with adaptive display turned on.

The OnePlus 11 will be available for $699, the same price as the Pixel 8. Unfortunately from Google's perspective, the OnePlus phone also has a more power efficient Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset. Thanks to this chipset, the OnePlus 11 achieved an impressive 13 hours and 11 minutes in our battery test.

The Pixel 8 Pro saw a similar gap to flagship smartphones in the same price range: the iPhone 15 Pro fell just short of 11 hours, and the Galaxy S23 Plus missed the list of longest-lasting smartphones with 11 hours and 24 minutes. Including the top-of-the-line Galaxy S23 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro Max, they would exceed 12 and 14 hours, respectively.

There is some encouraging battery news about the Pixel 8 lineup when compared to other models. The 30W wireless charging supported by Google's new models fills up the battery in no time: the Pixel 8 Pro reached 59% on a 30-minute charge, while the Pixel 8 reached 60%; the Galaxy S23 and iPhone 15 reached 55% and 53% respectively in the same time.

And let's not lose sight of the bigger picture - the Pixel's durability has improved with the introduction of the new phone and its Tensor G3 silicon. This is a step in the right direction, but the Pixel 8's battery life shows that Google still has a long way to go if it wants to match the longevity of other top smartphones.