The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra may have the same 5,000 mAh battery as the Galaxy S23 Ultra, but it takes much longer to charge. In fact, its durability already trumps the iPhone 15 Pro Max, one of the longest-lasting phones.

Tom'sGuide tests every smartphone in our own battery tests. The phones that make our best cell phone battery life list generally last 12 hours or more on a charge. But the Samsung S24 Ultra sets the flagship standard (at least outside of gaming phones).

In our initial tests, the Galaxy S24 Ultra lasted an impressive 16 hours and 45 minutes with the display set to adaptive mode (which can dynamically scale from 1Hz to 120Hz). This runtime is more than 4 hours longer than the Galaxy S23 Ultra's 12 hours and 22 minutes.

The S23 Ultra can hold up to 13:09 with the screen in 60Hz mode; the S24 Ultra will also be tested in 60Hz mode.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max recorded 14:02 in the Tom's Guide battery test. This is great, but still nearly 3 hours short of the S24 Ultra. Meanwhile, the Pixel 8 Pro went down at 10:03, more than six hours behind Samsung's latest big-screen beast.

Is the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra the longest lasting phone overall? That honor goes to the Asus ROG Phone 8, because it is a gaming phone that uses the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip as Samsung's latest device.

This new chip could help explain the very large battery life difference between Samsung's Galaxy S24 Ultra and Galaxy S23 Ultra. After all, Qualcomm promises a 25% efficiency improvement between the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

More good news: using a 45W USB-C charger, the Galaxy S24 Ultra reached 71% charge in 30 minutes.

Overall, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is one of the longest-lasting phones ever. For more on the pros and cons of the new device, see our Galaxy S24 Ultra hadns-on review.