I tried to kill the battery on the Pixel 10 Pro in one day

One of the most important aspects of a new smartphone is also one of the least exciting: the battery.

While crisp displays, fancy AI features, and high-powered camera arrays are highly sought after by the average user, the reality is that none of them are going to work if the battery dies.

That’s why companies often advertise how long their devices can last, like Google insisting that the new Pixel 10 Pro can last all day. Its 4870mAh battery will absolutely make it at least 24 hours without a charge.

That is, as long as you don’t shirk many of your responsibilities to scroll through social media and play games all day, after turning on every battery-draining setting you can find in an attempt to kill the battery before the end of the day, which is exactly what I did.

So, did the Google Pixel 10 Pro last all day as promised? Let’s find out!

What I did to my Pixel 10 Pro to test the battery

I really put it through the ringer, far beyond standard usage

In an effort to really test the limits of the Pixel 10 Pro battery, I didn’t just spend a normal day with the phone.

Over the last week of standard usage, I rarely even got close to 20% by the end of the day, so I really wanted to put it through the paces to see how long the smartphone could last when pushed to the absolute max. Some might even say to an unreasonable level.

At 7 am, I woke up to my Pixel 10 Pro fully charged at 100%. Right away, I headed over to the Settings tab and started toggling all of those battery-sucking features to the on position for the day.

Always-on display, check. 100% brightness, check. Screen timeout set to “after 30 minutes of inactivity,” check.

I also changed the background of my home screen phone to one of those Living Universe wallpapers that is constantly moving in the background.

These changes alone should have a notable impact, with many smartphone users not realizing that the display just being on can be one of the biggest battery drainers.

After that, I started opening and using apps, clearing my in-use apps as infrequently as possible.

It was still a workday, so I couldn’t fully commit to obsessing over the Pixel 10 Pro for hours straight until the battery gave up. However, during lulls and breaks, I did my best to get as much smartphone-based leisure time in as possible.

Scrolling through TikTok, watching Netflix, messaging friends, and asking Gemini about the score of the Bears-Vikings game throughout the day.

Even better, the first week of the fantasy football season just ended, so I was consistently on the ESPN Fantasy app toggling through different match-ups, analyzing waivers, and basking in the beauty of my roster (we’re 1-0 now, no big deal).

All that to say, I did my darnedest to really drain the battery of the Pixel 10 Pro without alienating my family or losing my job.

How the Pixel 10 Pro battery held up

It lasted 24 hours, thanks to Battery Saver at bedtime

I must admit, I was impressed with the battery life of the Pixel 10 Pro, particularly given all the battery-draining settings I changed and how much TikTok scrolling I did that day.

The display consistently being on for the majority of the day has been an absolute battery killer for me in the past, and with the brightness at 100% and adaptive brightness turned off, I genuinely thought I would be able to drain the phone before bedtime.

When I saw that 45 minutes had gone by to start the day, and I hadn’t even dropped to 99%, I knew I was going to have a harder time getting it to zero than I realized.

I kicked it into high gear all morning, leaving the display on, turning on auto-scroll for TikTok, and downloading app updates to see if I could really get it drained and maybe even heated up.

The middle of the day allowed me to make progress, but alas, I couldn’t make a big dent. I even researched the biggest battery-draining games on Android, eventually downloading PUBG MOBILE around 2 pm to see if I could speed up the process.

Around 5 pm, though, between a long drive to the doctor and a stop at the trampoline park with the family, I couldn’t put all my attention on draining the battery, which helped ensure that it made it the full 24 hours.

On top of that, after heading to bed around 10:30 pm, the device was finally able to turn off and auto-enabled Battery Saver to make sure it got me to the following morning.

Here’s a quick breakdown of how quickly the battery drained throughout the day:

• 7:00 am — 100%
• 7:46 am — 99%
• 9:25 am — 90%
• 10:43 am — 80%
• 12:36 pm — 70%
• 2:02 pm — 60%
• 3:57 pm — 50%
• 5:07 pm — 40%
• 8:46 pm — 30%
• 10:11 pm — 20%
• 7:00 am — 10%

Suffice to say, the battery on the Google Pixel 10 Pro held up quite nicely.

For anyone who consistently charges their phone overnight, it will easily make it through your daily and nightly routine with virtually no risk of dying before you’re done, especially if your brightness and display settings are normal and not specifically set to drain the battery of your phone.

Even better, if you really want to push it to the edge, charging it back up won’t take too long, with Google noting that it can charge up to 55% from zero in just 30 minutes with a 30W USB-C PPS charger or higher.

Remember, though, smartphones don’t ship with chargers anymore, so you’ll have to purchase those separately.

Is the Pixel 10 Pro battery good enough?

Even though we cut it close, that’s clearly a good battery

To be clear, if I wasn’t gainfully employed with a wife, a three-year-old daughter, and a desire to avoid screen-time headaches, I’d like to think that I could’ve gotten a bit closer to successfully draining the Pixel 10 Pro battery down to zero in one day.

I could’ve scoured the Play Store for even more of the biggest battery-draining apps, I could have opened even more games simultaneously, and I could’ve locked myself in a closet and scrolled TikTok until my eyes bled.

Hopefully, that’s not how you’re using the Pixel 10 Pro, though. For any normal person using the device in a normal way, the battery has more than enough power to get you to the end of the day and then some.

And considering the Extreme Battery Saver can give you up to 100 hours of smartphone life, according to Google, this phone more than meets expectations when it comes to keeping your battery alive throughout the day.