I Tested a Low-Cost Phone With One of the Biggest Batteries We’ve Seen Yet

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Silicon-carbon batteries have been leading phones to eyebrow-raising battery life, and the Realme P4 Power includes one of the biggest batteries we’ve seen in a phone. It’s setting an even higher benchmark with a 10,001mAh battery. By comparison, this is double the capacity we see in more mainstream phones like the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, which includes a 5,000mAh battery.

The Realme phone surpasses what we’ve seen in other phones with this type of battery, including the OnePlus 15‘s 7,300mAh battery and the RedMagic 11 Pro‘s 7,500mAh battery. Phones with batteries of this scale provide up to two days of use and often have faster charging speeds to go with it.

The Realme P4 Power is currently available in India — it’s unlikely to ever come to the US — but despite its chart-topping battery capacity, it’s relatively inexpensive at INR 25,999, or approximately $285. It’s just a little bigger than the 10,000mAh battery in the Honor Win, which I got to try out last year but didn’t get extended time in order to really test it out.

That’s why I was excited to put my SIM into the Realme P4 Power, during which I was able to test this phone through all of CNET’s battery tests, use it as my primary device and even as a power bank for my iPhone along the way.

All that battery without any major drawbacks

The best part about the Realme P4 Power is that it doesn’t sacrifice comfort for additional battery capacity. It isn’t a slim and light phone but at 9.1mm thick and 219g weight, it is lighter than some big flagship phones, including the iPhone 17 Pro Max and Google Pixel 10 Pro XL.

Realme’s TransView Design has a translucent look around the camera module, which accentuates its “Power” branding. I like this distinct design and in-hand feel. It has curved corners as well as slight curves on the back that make it easy to hold. (Please take note, Samsung.)

The Realme P4 Power has a plastic back and frame, while the front is protected by Gorilla Glass 7i. It is also rated for durability with IP66, IP68 and IP69 dust- and water-resistance ratings. This means, it can survive freshwater submersion and high-pressure water jets and is also protected against small dust particles.

On the front, you get a 6.8-inch AMOLED display with a 2,800×1,280-pixel resolution, 144Hz refresh rate, 1,800 nits brightness and 6,500 nits peak brightness for HDR-supported content. Like many phones, you have to manually set it to a higher resolution and refresh rate to take advantage of these features.

I had no issues with the screen, and using a curved panel after a long time was a refreshing experience. It was easily legible outdoors, and I enjoyed watching videos. However, I don’t like the absence of stereo speakers. The device has just one speaker at the bottom; while it is loud, you’ll need to connect your earbuds for a better movie experience.

I used the Realme P4 Power in day-to-day life, which included doomscrolling on social media apps like Instagram and X, answering emails and messages on Gmail, WhatsApp and Slack navigating on Maps and snapping a few photos. It comfortably lasted me up to two days of regular use and one and a half days on heavy use. And when you do need to charge it, you can use the bundled charger to top up the battery at 80 watts.

To better judge the new Realme phone, I put it through CNET’s 3-hour video streaming test and 45-minute battery endurance test.

Realme P4 Power battery benchmarks

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	YouTube streaming drain test starting at 100%	45 min battery endurance
Realme P4 Power	1 hr: 97%; 2 hr: 95%; 3 hr: 91% (144Hz)	100% to 99%
Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max	1 hr: 100%; 2 hr: 96%; 3 hr: 91% (1-120Hz)	100% to 99%
OnePlus 15	1 hr: 98%; 2 hr: 94%; 3 hr: 90% (1-120Hz)	100% to 97%
Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra	1 hr: 97%; 2 hr: 92%; 3hr: 87% (1-120Hz)	100% to 95%

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In the video streaming test, where I streamed a video over Wi-Fi with the screen at full brightness and the battery starting at 100%, it lost 3% battery per hour and ended at 91%. This puts it on top of CNET’s charts alongside the iPhone 17 Pro Max, followed by the OnePlus 15 (90%) and iPhone 17 (89%).

It performed similarly well during CNET’s 45-minute endurance test, during which we play games, stream videos, scroll social media and take a video call with the battery starting at 100%. The Realme P4 Power ended up losing just 1% battery, sharing the top spot with the iPhone 17 Pro Max at 99%.

How about everything else?

The Realme P4 Power has a MediaTek Dimensity 7400 Ultra chipset, paired with up to 12GB RAM and 256GB storage. (The base model has 8GB RAM and 128GB storage.) This is more of a midrange chip that’s in a similar class as the Motorola Razr‘s Dimensity 7400X. It handles day-to-day tasks smoothly, and it has no major flaws. As for minor issues, I did notice apps taking longer than usual to load sometimes and the camera app taking a few seconds to process, but these issues are not a deal-breaker.

Realme’s user interface is smooth, snappy and highly customizable. It is similar to OnePlus and Oppo. However, you get multiple preloaded apps. (I uninstalled them as soon as I set up the phone.) Overall, this Realme UI 7.0 (based on Android 16) is fast and responsive. You’ll get three years of Android OS upgrades and four years of security upgrades.

The Realme P4 Power has two rear cameras and a 16-megapixel selfie shooter on the front. You get a 50-megapixel main camera and an 8-megapixel ultrawide-angle sensor on the back. Plenty of AI-powered tools are available to help you enhance or edit a shot.

It delivers a satisfactory camera experience. In daylight, the P4 Power can snap some good-looking photos. The colors are mostly accurate, contrast is balanced and the dynamic range is decent. It processes 2x portraits digitally, which works fine for the most part, but at times, certain areas can have a cutout-feel to them — like you’ve been pasted on a background.

Overall, the Realme P4 Power is a great phone for its excellent battery life. I was expecting it to perform well with its 10,001mAh battery, but I didn’t expect it to blow out every other Android phone in our tests. I love it more because this battery innovation is accessible to the masses, thanks to its lower price and not being gatekept on more expensive models.

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