This one is genuinely embarrassing for Google. A new battery endurance test has revealed that the Samsung Galaxy S26 — which carries a battery roughly 1,000mAh smaller than the Pixel 10 Pro XL — outlasts Google’s flagship by over 3 hours in video playback and nearly 2x longer in gaming. The culprit is no mystery: Google’s Tensor G5 chip.
Table of Contents
Galaxy S26 vs Pixel 10 Pro XL: Battery Test Results
| Test | Samsung Galaxy S26 | Google Pixel 10 Pro XL |
|---|---|---|
| Battery Capacity | ~4,300mAh | ~5,200mAh |
| Active Use (Average) | 15 hrs 20 mins | 12 hrs 29 mins |
| Advantage | +2 hrs 51 mins | — |
| Video Playback Gap | S26 wins by 3+ hours | — |
| Gaming Gap | S26 lasts nearly 2x longer | — |
| Chipset | Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 | Google Tensor G5 |
Why the Tensor G5 Is the Problem
he Tensor G5 chip excels at AI-related tasks but falls short of the competition in most other areas — and the battery results lay that bare. The chip uses ARM’s now-nearly-three-year-old CPU cores to save on costs, which shows up in degraded performance versus peers, and pairs them with an Imagination IMG DXT-48-1536 GPU that lacks ray-tracing support.
The result is a chip that burns through battery doing the same tasks a Snapdragon handles far more efficiently. This test goes a long way to practically demonstrate that mindlessly cramming extra milliamp hours in your battery counts very little if your chip is as unoptimised as the Tensor G5.
Meanwhile, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in the Galaxy S26 destroys the Tensor G5 in graphics testing — with both score and frame rate more than double what the Pixel manages in 3DMark Wild Life Extreme. Check out our full Galaxy S26 coverage on Technosports for more.
FAQs
Does the Galaxy S26 have a bigger battery than the Pixel 10 Pro XL?
No — the Pixel 10 Pro XL has a ~1,000mAh larger battery, yet the Galaxy S26 still lasts significantly longer due to better chip efficiency.
Why does the Pixel 10 Pro XL have poor battery life despite a larger battery?
Google’s Tensor G5 chip is less power-efficient than the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, consuming more energy for the same tasks.
