Nokia XL battery test

The Nokia XL is a fairly large and heavy phone but it has a relatively small 2,000mAh battery. While its dual-core Cortex-A5 chipset and its WVGA screens are not the biggest battery hogs, we’re testing the dual-SIM version of the phone, which is bound to put extra strain on the battery.

The Nokia XL’s smaller siblings have 1,500mAh batteries so the extra 1″ screen size also comes with a 500mAh advantage.
Still, the Nokia XL was within half an hour of the Nokia X that we tested (also the dual-SIM version) and matched the Apple iPhone 5s almost exactly. Eleven hours or so is a pretty good result, considering the price range.
Note that while one SIM card is in a call, the other shuts down so it shouldn’t harm the battery life and we’ve seen phones with 2,000mAh batteries do better.

Talk time

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• Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 LTE 46:44h
• Samsung I9105 Galaxy S II Plus 11:06h
• HTC Desire X 11:03h
• Meizu MX3 11:02h
• Samsung I9500 Galaxy S4 11:01h
• Apple iPhone 5s 10:46h
• Nokia XL 10:45h
• Apple iPhone 5c 10:18h
• Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III 10:15h
• Samsung S7710 Galaxy Xcover 2 10:03h
• Samsung Galaxy Express I8730 10:00h
• Meizu MX 4-core 10:00h
• Pantech Burst 4:46h

The web browsing time surprised us – the Nokia XL lasted 12 hours, which is among the best results we’ve seen. Other dual-SIM phones are near the top too, the Sony Xperia C and the HTC Desire 700 dual sim.
Part of Nokia’s plan for its entry level devices is to connect as many people as possible to the Internet and the Nokia XL will do an excellent job at it.

Web browsing

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• Sony Xperia C 12:45h
• Nokia Lumia 1520 12:40h
• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact 12:37h
• HTC Desire 700 dual sim 12:30h
• Nokia XL 11:54h
• LG G2 11:22h
• HTC One Max 11:20h
• Sony Xperia ZR 11:20h
• HTC Butterfly S 11:07h
• LG G2 mini 11:02h
• Samsung Galaxy Nexus I9250 3:01h

Web browsing is typically the heavier load on a phone, but Nokia XL’s old chipset is fairly limited when it comes to video decoding. Video playback time was just over half the web browsing time.
We use an AVI/DivX video for the test and we guess a different container and codec combo might have drained the battery slower. The Nokia XL camera shoots 3GP videos so that may have been a bit better, but we can’t think of a video service that offers movies and TV shows in 3GP.

Video playback

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• LG G Flex 19:57h
• Motorola Moto G 6:37h
• Nokia Lumia 900 6:37h
• Meizu MX 4-core 6:33h
• Nokia Lumia 620 6:32h
• Nokia Lumia 625 6:29h
• Nokia XL 6:28h
• Sony Xperia E dual 6:27h
• HTC Windows Phone 8X 6:27h
• HTC Desire 700 dual sim 6:26h
• Nokia Lumia 810 6:26h
• Samsung Galaxy Ace Duos S6802 6:25h
• Nokia Lumia 710 3:27h

The Nokia X had an uninspiring endurance rating of 38 hours, while the Nokia XL performed much better (especially on the web browser test) and scored a respectable 62 hour rating. Depending on usage, it will be 2-3 days between charges.

It’s not as good as you might expect from a feature phone (and the Nokia X family targets mostly people upgrading from an Asha), but it’s about what you can expect from an average smartphone. Nokia XL’s modest price tag makes these results all the more impressive. Check out our batter life table, containing all the devices we’ve tested so far.