iPhones are often accused of being too much like the models released the year before. However, Apple has made one big change in an area you might not appreciate from its webpage this year: battery life.
The iPhone 16 family has marginally larger batteries than those of the iPhone 15 generation, but the improvement in real-world stamina is better than you might expect from these estimated raw figures:
- iPhone 16: 3561mAh from 3349mAh
- iPhone 16 Pro: 3582mAh from 3274mAh
- iPhone 16 Plus: 4674mAh from 4383mAh
- iPhone 16 Pro Max: 4685mAh from 4441mAh
What’s mAh? It stands for milliampere hour, and is the industry standard measurement of how much charge a battery can hold in the phone world.
The iPhone 16 family brings around a 6 per cent increase in battery capacity, but testing shows we’re getting more like a 13 per cent to 20 per cent increase in real-world battery life.
Want proof? There’s plenty of it. PhoneArena has produced a great video showing how the iPhone 16 Pro stacks up against other small phones, including its direct predecessor.
Where the iPhone 15 Pro was the worst performer of the bunch, the iPhone 16 Pro manages to beat the Samsung Galaxy S24 and Xiaomi 14.
For example, in the web browsing test, the iPhone 15 Pro lasted 14 hours 54 minutes, and the iPhone 16 Pro 16 hours 35 minutes.
Popular YouTuber Mrwhosetheboss went all-in and produced a video looking at the stamina of the entire new iPhone 16 family. He compared them to the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.
He set up his own test, featuring several different jobs for the phone that eat up battery life. Here are their chart positions:
- iPhone 15: 7hr 45
- iPhone 16: 8hr 19
- iPhone 16 Pro: 8hr 19
- iPhone 16 Plus: 8hr 45
- iPhone 15 Pro Max: 9hr 35
- iPhone 16 Pro Max: 11hr 22
- Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra: 12hr 31
Another British tech YouTuber, The Tech Chap, produced a similar video and included a handful of other brands too.
In his test, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra was nowhere near as long-lasting, instead lasting almost exactly the same as the base iPhone 16.
Again, though, he did find the iPhone 16 Pro Max battery life was great, if not quite as good as the Honor M6 Pro or Vivo X100 Pro. But if you’re shopping for an iPhone there’s a good chance you have no real interest in those brands anyway.
What these tests don’t factor in is what battery drain is like when you’re not doing a whole lot with your phone. Or, say, when your apps are quietly performing processes and downloading data in the background.
Still, the verdict is fairly clear. The iPhone 16 series is a major upgrade on its predecessors for battery life. But it doesn’t wipe away the old truth that bigger iPhones last longer than smaller ones. And we’re not seeing the type of gains, at least not across the board, that would make these the longest-lasting phones of all.
That said, GSMArena does place the iPhone 16 Plus at the head of its battery life test chart, ahead of even the iPhone 16 Pro Max and Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.
