Motorola's new Moto X phone made a big splash when it was unveiled last week, offering a powerful set of voice controls and an attractive, customizable design. We gave the phone four stars, because of its compact design, speedy performance and innovative speech recognition, but even the best features are useless when your phone runs out of juice. To find out how long it lasts, we put the Moto X's battery through its paces to see how it stacks up against some of today's most popular handsets.
MORE: Motorola Moto X: Full Review
Motorola set the bar high for itself in 2012 with the 3.300 mAh Droid Razr Maxx HD, which lasted an impressive 8 hours and 13 minutes on the LAPTOP Battery Test, which involves continuous surfing over 4G at 40 percent brightness. The Moto X and its 2,200 mAh battery don't provide quite that same level of endurance, resting right above the 6:07 smartphone category average with a runtime of 6:13.
Motorola's new device outlasts the 2,600 mAh Samsung Galaxy S4 on Verizon, which blacked out at 5:25 under our test and only lasted a minute more with power saver mode. However, the Galaxy S4 has a user replaceable battery and high-capacity options such as the Mugen Power HLI-I9500XL are available.
The Moto X beat out the AT&T HTC One (2,300 mAh) on standard settings (5:55), though the One lasted a bit longer than the Moto X at 6:20 with power saver on. The Moto X just can't keep up with Apple's iPhone 5 on Verizon, which lasted over an hour longer.
While the all-new Moto X doesn't have the longest battery life on the market, you'll be able to enjoy several hours worth of talk-typing and instant picture-snapping before going red. However, if battery life is your main priority, you might want to wait for the upcoming Droid Maxx and its 3,500 mAh battery.
