Better performance or battery life? This wasn’t close at all.

The first month of 2023 is just about wrapping up, and we’ve already seen a few flagship phones launching. But we’re expecting some high-profile launches next month thanks to the Galaxy S23 series and OnePlus 11.

Nevertheless, we were curious as to what you actually wanted from phones in 2023. Did you want more horsepower or longer endurance? We posed this question to you, and here’s what you told us.

Do you want better performance or longer battery life in 2023?

Results

Just over 1,700 votes were cast in this poll as of writing, and it turns out it wasn’t a close race by any measure. Over 80% of respondents said they wanted longer battery life from smartphones in 2023.

This makes plenty of sense, as the last few generations of flagship phones are still very powerful devices. So even high-end phones from 2020 and 2021 should still offer a smooth everyday experience and great gaming performance.

Meanwhile, just over 15% of surveyed readers said they wanted more horsepower in 2023. One reader noted in the comments that they were happy with their battery life, so performance seemed like the obvious option for them. Another reader felt that better performance was a wise choice because you can always use system settings to eke out more juice, whereas your maximum performance is effectively capped.

It must also be said that many high-end phones in the last couple of years have suffered from poor sustained performance, so there’s still scope for improvements in this regard in 2023.

Comments

• Konrad Uroda-Darłak: Lmao, these days performance is more than enough.
• Mega DP: Even on my Galaxy Note 9, it handles everything I throw at it. The problem has always been battery life.
• Riku_Xander: Higher performance. You can always have options to scale back performance for longer battery life, but whatever your max performance, it’s the max performance.
• fearlessferret: I prefer longer battery life by far. I love the idea of Sony’s phones, and have been planning on getting one for years, but the performance of my LG V40 and even my V20 is so good that what I’d be getting out of a Sony phone would not be worth the 1200 I paid (I bought my V40 brand new for 350).
• eszklar: Both. I want performance tempered by good battery optimization and a bigger battery.
• deltatux: Phones have way more power than what most people need these days. I think it’s safe to say these days I think most people would rather have much longer battery life than more performance.
• NNN: With power cuts still a big deal in my country, it’s always going to be longer battery life. It was never in doubt!
• gwine: I get 2 days of battery life, now. More might be better, but I will take a performance upgrade, first.