Games that won't kill your battery before lunch

Battery life is the unglamorous thing nobody tests until their phone dies on the way home. We've started tracking it on every review, and a few patterns stand out. Stylized art almost always beats photoreal, and turn-based pacing sips power compared to twitchy real-time action.

The biggest drain is usually the display and the constant background syncing, not the game logic itself. Turning brightness down a notch and switching off unnecessary notifications does more than most in-game settings. It's boring advice, but it works.

In our testing, calm sims and card games were the champions. Racing and 3D RPGs are the hungriest, which makes sense given what they're rendering. None of that means you should avoid them — just plan your sessions and maybe carry a cable.

If you only remember one thing: cap the frame rate when the game lets you. Sixty frames per second looks lovely for about the forty minutes before your battery gives up. Thirty is plenty for most of these, and your phone will thank you.