Just a week after OnePlus announced (frankly, very frustratingly) a new Android flagship with a monstrous 9,000 mAh battery, its Beijing-based rival Xiaomi is already clapping. China’s largest smartphone vendor has revealed the specifications and design of its upcoming flagship, the Redmi K100, and while it hasn’t provided specific battery numbers, it claims the capacity is in the range of an unnecessarily crazy 10,000 mAh..
Xiaomi announced in a somewhat dramatic Weibo post on Monday (its description of the handset translates to something like “dual-chip demon king”) that the K100 would launch on October 27 at 7 p.m. (China time, presumably) and would aim to have the best battery life in its price range. Of course, we don’t know the price of this device yet, so this comment is not useful at all, but on paper it is true that we have before us one of the largest battery capacities on an Android phone. For context, Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra has a 5,000mAh battery and Google’s Pixel 11 Pro XL sports a slightly larger one. The K100, next to these, is essentially a battery with a screen.
Look, I’m not saying there aren’t exciting things happening in American technology. We have foldable iPhones and microscopic Xbox controllers, of course. But I’m not convinced we have anything resembling the battery arms race currently underway between Chinese brands. Honor’s Power2, released earlier this year, has a capacity of just over 10,000 mAh, a 26% increase over its predecessor. The Realme P4 Power also crossed the 10,000 mAh threshold this year. Honor’s “super-powerful” Magic 9 model, released a few weeks ago, boasts a whopping 11,000 mAh capacity, and the company has a 12,000 mAh model on the way, which would be the largest battery capacity I’ve seen in a consumer smartphone, outside of the rugged stuff that people like hikers use.
However, I don’t think this trend solely reflects a desire for longevity. Because here’s another fun fact: the K100 is the first phone in the Redmi K series to sport a dedicated gaming chip in its base SKU. This is a feature that is not uncommon on gaming-focused Android phones. Flagships going back to the OnePlus 12 and RedMagic 10S Pro have tried them from time to time, and earlier higher-tier Redmi phones like the K80 Pro and K80 Ultra have had them as well. The potential improvements in smoothness and efficiency that dedicated gaming chips offer are making their way into a standard model, potentially an exciting development for fans of this line – although, again, we don’t yet know how much this “base model” will cost. Regardless, I also have to imagine that these capacity expansions will have diminishing returns at some point. The aforementioned S26 Ultra battery is already very difficult to drain on a daily basis.
That’s why I think what we’re seeing isn’t, in fact, everyday use, but rather reflects an increased focus on mobile gaming alongside the rise of chips like the Snapdragon 8 Elite, which touts gaming as a major advantage and which Gizmodo’s Kyle Barr called a “performance monster.” The OnePlus 16 includes a 185Hz OLED panel, a phrase I’m used to typing in relation to fancy gaming laptops and not devices you can put in your pocket. Honor’s WIN lineup is also tackling 185Hz gaming this year. The competition is clearly not just about gaming performance, but also about supported gaming performance.
Of course, there are also a trillion gaming handhelds currently on Chinese shelves, and one wonders exactly how many more, if any, GenshinImpact you could realistically get out of one of these phones (Ayaneo’s Pocket S2 Pro, for example, also has a 10,000 mAh battery), especially with the brightness of those power-hungry screens. If you are in China or have a friend who can put you in touch, please let us know within a week.
Gn tech
