If you're wondering whether the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro are worth buying, the short answer is "yes" as you can see from our Pixel 6 review and Pixel 6 Pro review, both models have great cameras, responsive displays, and new Tensor chips that ample power

The only major caveat to the Pixel 6 series is battery life In Tom's Guide battery tests of 5G of continuous surfing the web at 150 nits screen brightness, both models had below-average endurance

Incidentally, all of the phones on our Best Smartphone Battery Duration list lasted more than 11 hours, and we consider more than 10 hours to be above average

The Pixel 6's 4,614 mAh battery lasted only 8 hours and 1 minute in our tests with the screen set to static or 60Hz mode In adaptive mode, which increases the refresh rate from 60 Hz to 90 Hz, the figure was as high as 8 hours and 13 minutes Not good

Surprisingly, the Pixel 6 Pro was even worse in the battery test at 7 hours 53 minutes, despite its large 5,000 mAh battery In adaptive mode, the Pixel 6 Pro had almost the same time, 7 hours 46 minutes

By comparison, the iPhone 13 lasted 10 hours 33 minutes in the web-surfing test, and the iPhone 13 Pro Max lasted 12 hours 16 minutes The Samsung Galaxy S21 endured 9:53 minutes and the Galaxy S21 Ultra 11:25 minutes Finally, the OnePlus 9 Pro had an impressive 12:48 minutes

Interestingly, the regular Pixel 6 was also tested several times on 4G, averaging 10 hours 52 minutes This is great, but we would like to see better results at 5G

So what is going on? There are several hypotheses One is that the Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro battery tests were done at 77% brightness Other phones tend to reach that knit level at about 50% brightness, but we wanted to keep the comparison fair

Next, the Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro reportedly use the older Samsung modem found in the Galaxy S20 series At this point, they are over a year old This modem is likely not as efficient as the newer Qualcomm modems in today's flagships

To be fair, no one is going to keep surfing the web until the battery runs out, and our tests do not reflect real-world use In fact, thanks to tools like Google's Tensor chip and Extreme Energy Saver mode, you should be able to get through most (if not all) of the day on a charge

However, when it comes to on-the-go 5G tasks, the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro are definitely a step behind the competition when it comes to battery life

It is also worth pointing out that Google warns that the Pixel 6 may not charge with generic charging hardware or USB-A charging hardware This, coupled with the weak battery life of 5G, is a veritable double punch of battery problems