Gsmarena feature labs: the tests

THIS BATTERY TEST ROUTINE HAS BEEN RETIRED AFTER THE INTRODUCTION OF OUR NEW BATTERY LIFE TEST AT THE END OF 2023. THIS ARTICLE WILL REMAIN LIVE FOR ARCHIVE PURPOSES, BUT PLEASE REFER TO OUR

NEW BATTERY TEST METHODOLOGY FOR UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION. BATTERY LIFE In gauging battery life, it's hard to perfect a methodology that lets you cover all of the various use scenarios

without having to test for weeks on end. Whether it be display, audio quality, or camera, the goal with all of our tests is not only to provide you with the clearest, most comprehensive

examination of a particular device but also to provide it to you promptly. Our battery test is no exception. With each battery test you'll see four different numbers, each reflecting a

different type of battery-consuming activities. The test revolves around three tasks, performed commonly by smartphone users: making calls, browsing the web, and playing a video. Our

Endurance rating is the result of combining the power draw from these activities in a formula, which at its most basic level assumes a daily usage scenario including an hour of VOICE CALLS,

an hour of OFFLINE VIDEO PLAYBACK, and an hour of WI-FI BROWSING per day, with the rest of the 24 hours taken up by STANDBY POWER CONSUMPTION. We also give you an option to adjust the

formula - clicking on the image above will take you to our battery chart where you can adjust the share of these activities in a 24h day. But even then, our endurance rating may still not

match _your_ real-life usage scenario, but remember - this is just an even base for comparing battery performance across devices. If you are more into eBook reading or social media browsing,

for instance, you can give more weight to the web browsing test. If you prefer watching YouTube videos, the offline video playback would also be a good indication of how the phone will

perform in this task. If you are into gaming - average the results in the two on-screen tasks and divide it by half or so. Don't be afraid to work the numbers as you please. No measure

is perfect - and the number of apps you have installed, your ambient temperature, and also the available ambient light are also important variables. So do not look at our numbers as a

promised runtimes. The Endurance rating is just an indication of overall battery life. The individual scores are merely indicative of how the phone will perform in any similar category of

tasks. The numbers should only be used to compare whether Phone A is better than Phone B and you can't expect to match the same runtimes in your own usage. BREAKING DOWN THE TESTS The

first test is the talk time test, which measures how long it takes to deplete the battery by making voice calls. Bearing in mind that most screens automatically turn off during a call,

we've made sure our set up accounts for this. We close all applications which may further strain the battery, too. The web browsing test is performed using an automated script that

reloads a webpage every ten seconds. There are no flash elements on the web pages, so the playing field is even. We use an 802.11n access point placed a few meters away to get full

connectivity bars. In our video playback test we measure how long it takes for a device to run its fully charged battery down to 10%, while looping a standard-definition H.264 video. We stop

at 10% since most devices shut their video players at this point or lower their brightness substantially. All radios on the device are switched off (Airplane mode). Since the beginning of

2016 we also have a fixed brightness level of 200nits of the screen for all of our battery tests. The level of 200nits has become somewhat of an industry standard for indoor day use. But

more importantly, it's both the median and average value of the brightness levels at which we've tested all reviewed devices so far. This means that our earlier pre-2016 battery

life test results will remain comparable and equally relevant as before. SPEAKER TEST When we designed our original speaker loudness test (now discontinued), the goal was to gauge how loud

your phone will ring when you get a call or how well the phone is geared towards use in speakerphone mode. That's why we simply measured the peak loudness of the phone’s speakers in

decibel while playing three different audio samples (a classic phone ringing, some pink noise, and then human speech). It was great if you wanted to know how loud this particular phone was

but it didn't give you any indication of how well it sounded. With the advance of smartphones, nowadays phone usage leans more and more towards multimedia consumption - people gaming,

listening to music and watching movies on their phones' speakers, so we decided that measuring the sound quality was equally important too. Also, we figured out how to measure the

average loudness instead of the peak one, making the loudness score more indicative of the experience you will get with multimedia rather than when your phone's merely blasting

high-pitched tones. Our test includes playing back a few select tracks in an environment with controlled acoustic properties and recording that playback with an audio recorder. The first

benefit of our new test is that you can now listen to the recordings by all tested phones. This way you don't have to rely solely on our subjective commentary about what they sound like

(we recommend using headphones for playback). But you don't have to trust _just_ your hearing on this. Our audio sample set also includes a specialized audio track that sweeps the

whole frequency range. We analyze the recording of this track by specialized software that tells us how well the phone's speaker(s) reproduces the different frequencies. A look on the

frequency response chart will easily tell you whether one phone reproduced the bass, treble, and mid frequencies better than another phone. (Tip: The closer to the flat line of 0db, the

better.) And finally, based on the recordings we've made, we can analyze the average loudness of the speaker output, which gets us a loudness score. And since we now measure the

weighted average loudness of a phone and not the peak one, this loudness score is not affected by peak bursts of high tones which are irrelevant for multimedia consumption. LUFS stands for

"Loudness Units relative to Full Scale" - it's an industry-standard unit used in audio normalization for broadcast TV as well as streaming music and video. You should keep in

mind two things when reading those. The LUFS unit represents a relative measurement - the number is derived when compared to a particular baseline. So unlike decibels, you can't compare

them to the sound of a TV or the roar of an airplane. The number here will only serve the purpose of comparing one phone to the other in our particular test. Note that higher is better and

the numbers are negative, meaning that the closer the LUFS reading is to zero, the louder the sound. To make it easier for you, we’ve also assigned ratings to each phone, ranging from Poor

to Excellent. These are not directly comparable to the ratings from our old loudness test since, as we already explained, they measure average rather than peak loudness. Finally, you can use

our new tool to compare any number of phones we've subjected to the new test. We've already retested a bunch of phones we had available, but going forward the new test will become

a part of our regular review routine so there will be plenty to choose from. HOW TO USE THE NEW WIDGET You will find our new Speakerphone test widget embedded in its corresponding section

in our reviews. It offers key info of how loud the phone is (measured in LUFS plus our rating) and it shows the frequency response chart, allowing you to instantly spot phones that have weak

bass or whose output in the high frequencies is too strong, making the audio harsh. The widget becomes even more useful when you add one or more phones to compare (tap Add to comparison and

use the search). You can compare the frequency response graphs to get a feel for the audio. The chart goes from +30dB to -30dB, but keep in mind that -30dB means 1,000 times quieter (and

+30dB is 1,000 times louder). An ideal speaker would produce a flat line at 0, any deviations above or below the zero line are flaws. When comparing two phones, what you need to look at is

how close the lines are to zero and also how flat they are - any peaks or valleys are audible distortions of the sound. Better yet, you can hit the Play button and hear the difference in

sound yourself. We recommend that you use headphones for this unless you have good quality speakers hooked up to your PC (if you’re reading the results on your phone, definitely use

headphones). We’ve preselected the first phone in the example below. The Asus ROG Phone II in Outdoor mode is currently the loudest phone in our database (and we think it will keep that

title for quite a while). However, add the iPhone 11 Pro to the comparison, and you’ll instantly see and hear the difference in bass and that the ROG scarifies bass frequency reproduction in

the pursuit of loudness. In fact, that was another issue with our old test – our ringtone sample leaned heavily on high-frequency sound. Some phones had speakers that produced a tinny sound

that were better suited to produce these high-pitched sounds. This accounted for a higher decibel rating in our old peak loudness test but subjectively, the sound was harsh and sometimes

unpleasant even. Our new test shows more nuanced results, separating the practical (hearing a notification) from the entertainment side of things. __Use the Playback controls to listen to

the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response

chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The

scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.