While most people have become used to mobile phone battery life and take measures to ensure they get the charge they need throughout the day, having a phone with a battery that lasts well is still important.  Whether you choose to carry a power cell or have a phone with a removable battery, meaning you can purchase a spare, the frustration of running low or carrying extra kit is still unappealing.

Battery life depends on many factors from the size of the battery to the way the phone is used.  Each phone battery has a mAH rating, and the larger the numbers, the more powerful the battery is; however you have to also look at the phone itself to determine the battery life.

Handsets rated as the top of the game often earn their title because they are really fast and they have fantastic display capabilities and to achieve this the battery has to work really hard and therefore will not have the most extended life. Inefficient processors contribute to battery drain and how you use the phone is the final piece of the calculation.  

If you head off for the day away from any charging facilities and leave your phone in your bag, checking it a few times and perhaps making a call, your battery life will likely be good.  However, if you are streaming music, taking photos, texting, calling and playing a few games you are going to be working the handset harder, and the battery will drain faster.

Some phones have a low power setting which turns off processes that can be lived without, and this helps conserve power, but the bottom line is the best battery life handsets are generally found in the midrange section of mobile phones.

There are many technical and not so technical ways to test the battery life of a phone, from real-world experimentation to lab-based scientific testing, and combining all of those tests the results are in.  The five phones with the best battery life in 2018, in no particular order, are:

Sony Xperia XA2

In terms of numbers, the Sony Xperia XA2 has a 3300mAh battery, and this combines with a particularly efficient operating system in the form of Android Oreo and a screen that has a screen resolution lower than many of the high-end phones coming in at 729 x 1280p.  

Sony has still managed to offer full HD, and the pixel density is 294ppi, meaning that the image clarity is great, but the battery life is incredible. The shape of the handset marks the phone clearly as a Sony with the favoured angular edges on display once more, and while this might not be the top of the Sony fold, it is undoubtedly the perfect handset for offering an excellent battery life.

Motorola Moto G6 Play

This handset from Motorola has a 4000mAh battery which is an impressive size and bigger than some top end phones.  Being a budget end phone there is not as much going on as some of the higher performing phones and coming with a battery this size means the internal processes are not that heavy on the juice.  

Looks wise this is actually a nifty little handset although it is made mostly of plastic, the 5.7-inch screen takes up a nice proportion of the front and offers a nice depth of colour in the display. The battery size is almost out of kilter with the rest of the design, but that certainly works in the favour of the user.

Nokia 8

It is good to see a range of manufactures being able to crack the battery life conundrum, and the Nokia 8 is no exception.  With a 3090mAh battery, the Nokia runs Android Nougat with the option of upgrading to Oreo, both of which are known to be good with resources.  

For such a good battery performance the screen resolution is also pretty amazing coming in at a whopping 1440 x 2560 pixels, you would expect a display of that resolution to drain the battery in a more significant way.  

This is a really well-balanced handset combining an excellent performance with an outstanding battery life; it sits neatly in the middle of the field and in terms of the budget will fall nicely within the purse strings for many people.