HTC One S battery life testing is complete, here’s how power-efficient the two Krait cores are

We wanted to publish the HTC One S review as soon as possible so we had to do without the battery test (which takes a lot of time to complete). It’s done now and we’re ready to share it with you – especially since HTC doesn’t quote official numbers for the One S battery life.

We were very curious to see how the new chipset, part of the Snapdragon S4 family, performs compared to the old S3 models. It’s built on a 28nm process, which should offer much better power-efficiency than the 45nm process of the S3 chipsets.

On a 3G call, the HTC One S did really good – it lasted 9 hours and 42 minutes, which is very impressive considering the phone’s battery has only 1650mAh capacity. With the exception of the Samsung Wave III, the One S was beaten only by gadgets with huge batteries (the Galaxy Note has a 2500mAh battery, while the RAZR MAXX packs a whopping 3300mAh battery).

Talk time

• Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX
  20:24
• Samsung Galaxy Note
  12:14
• Samsung Wave 3 S8600
  11:07
• HTC One S
  9:42
• Samsung I9103 Galaxy R
  9:40
• HTC Sensation XL
  9:30
• Nokia Lumia 710
  9:05
• HTC Vivid
  9:02
• HTC Rhyme
  8:48
• Sony Ericsson Xperia neo V
  8:41
• Meizu MX
  8:39
• Samsung Galaxy S II
  8:35
• Nokia Lumia 800
  8:25
• Samsung Galaxy Nexus
  8:23
• Samsung Captivate Glide
  8:20
• HTC Rezound (LTE)
  8:10
• Samsung Galaxy Note (LTE)
  8:02
• Apple iPhone 4S
  7:41
• Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G
  7:14
• Samsung i937 Focus S
  7:25
• Samsung Rugby Smart I847
  7:09
• Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro
  6:57
• Nokia N9
  6:57
• HTC Radar
  6:53
• BlackBerry Curve 9380
  6:52
• LG Nitro HD (LTE)
  5:16
• BlackBerry Bold 9790
  5:00
• Pantech Burst
  4:46

The HTC One S has an AMOLED screen, which is usually bad news for web browsing. The One S lasted 4:03 hours, which is roughly comparable to most other AMOLED phones like the Galaxy S II or the Lumia 800. The exception to the rule is the RAZR MAXX, which offers almost twice the endurance of the One S (but the MAXX battery is twice the size of the One S battery).

Web browsing

• Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX
  7:23
• HTC Radar
  7:17
• Apple iPhone 4S
  6:56
• BlackBerry Curve 9380
  6:40
• Samsung i937 Focus S
  6:15
• Samsung Rugby Smart I847
  5:53
• Pantech Burst
  5:51
• Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G
  5:45
• Samsung Wave 3 S8600
  5:34
• Samsung Captivate Glide
  5:33
• Samsung Galaxy Note LTE
  5:24
• HTC Sensation XL
  5:20
• HTC Rezound
  5:16
• HTC Rhyme
  5:08
• Samsung I9103 Galaxy R
  5:07
• Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro
  4:50
• HTC Vivid
  4:46
• Meizu MX
  4:35
• Nokia N9
  4:33
• Samsung Galaxy S II
  4:24
• Sony Ericsson Xperia neo V
  4:20
• Nokia Lumia 800
  4:07
• HTC One S
  4:03
• BlackBerry Bold 9790
  4:02
• LG Nitro HD
  4:00
• Nokia Lumia 710
  3:51
• Samsung Galaxy Note
  3:35
• Samsung Galaxy Nexus
  3:01

The One S redeems itself in the video playback test – at 9 hours and 28 minutes, it ranked in our all time Top 3. We are not saying you should do it, but this would allow you to watch the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy (Wikipedia claims 9 hours 17 minutes of runtime) on a single charge.

Video playback

• Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX
  14:17
• Samsung Rugby Smart I847
  9:34
• HTC One S
  9:28
• Apple iPhone 4S
  9:24
• Nokia N9
  8:40
• Samsung Galaxy Note
  8:25
• Samsung Galaxy S II
  8:00
• Samsung i937 Focus S
  7:55
• Samsung Wave 3 S8600
  7:52
• Sony Ericsson Xperia neo V
  7:45
• Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G 7:33
• Samsung Galaxy Note LTE
  7:30
• Samsung I9103 Galaxy R
  6:21
• HTC Sensation XL
  6:12
• Samsung Captivate Glide
  6:04
• Samsung Galaxy Nexus
  6:02
• HTC Vivid
  6:00
• HTC Radar
  5:54
• Nokia Lumia 800
  5:52
• BlackBerry Bold 9790
  5:47
• Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro
  5:44
• Pantech Burst
  5:38
• Meizu MX
  5:27
• HTC Rhyme
  5:23
• BlackBerry Curve 9380
  5:09
• HTC Rezound
  5:03
• LG Nitro HD
  4:17
• Nokia Lumia 710
  3:27

The endurance rating for the HTC One S works out to 35 hours. That means you have about a day and a half before you’ll need to recharge it, assuming you talk for one hour, browse the web for another hour and watch an hour of video each day.

The rating doesn’t seem impressive, but that’s due to the relatively poor performance of the One S when it comes to web browsing. If talking and watching movies is all you do, it will last a good deal longer than a day and a half.