Long-lasting cell phones: Handsets with great battery life

Kent German, Senior Editor August 4, 2009

Battery life is one of the most important factors to consider when buying a cell phone. No matter how flashy a handset may be and how many cool features it may offer, it won't be worth much if the battery runs out too quickly. Fortunately, CNET performs talk time battery life tests on every handset that we review. Though manufacturers provide promises on battery life, real-world testing is a much better guideline.

By and large, basic models tend to outlast smartphones and fancy touch-screen handsets. It's not that they have better batteries, but rather the simple phones don't use their juice as quickly. Here are a few current cell phones that lasted over 7 hours in CNET's talk time tests.

Leading the way is the Sony Ericsson W518a for AT&T. Though we had a few complaints about the handset, we have to hand it to Sony Ericsson for the marathon battery life. Sony Ericsson also did well with AT&T's Cyber-shot C905. It lasted 11 hours and 23 minutes. T-Mobile's Samsung SGH-T349 went 8 hours and 6 minutes before a recharge and the unlocked Samsung Jet offered 7 hours and 52 minutes of battery life. On the messaging front, the LG Neon had 8 hours and 41 minutes of juice. That will make for a lot of texting. And for smartphones, the unlocked Nokia E75 had 8 hours of battery life, and the unlocked HTC Touch Diamond2 had almost 8 hours of power.

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