One of the new features available with the iPhone 14 Pro is the Always-On display. Thanks to new panel technology alongside the A16 Bionic chip, this screen can refresh just once per second, making it more power-efficient than ever.
That said, over the past few months, some users have complained that the Always-On display consumes more battery life than it should since it shows a dimmed background instead of a black screen.
With iOS 16.2, released last month, Apple tweaked how the iPhone 14 Pro Always-On display works to offer a black background with only the time, calendar, and widgets. To test how the iPhone 14 Pro behaves with the Always-On display fully on, with a black background, and turned off, the YouTube channel PhoneBuff made a 24-hour comparison test.
The results show that the Always-On display with wallpaper has a 0.8% battery drain per hour; without it, it’s just 0.6% per hour. To conduct the test, the YouTuber put the iPhone 14 Pro in Airplane Mode at 1,000 lux brightness, which is about what the iPhone uses in an outdoor environment.
Surprisingly, after 24 hours, the iPhone 14 Pro with the Always-On display with background consumed 16% of battery life, 14% with a black background, and 0% with Always-On off.
Although it’s impressive how little battery the iPhone drained when comparing the wallpaper display and the dimmed one, it’s important to note that it’s not a real-life usage, as people usually have a Wi-Fi or LTE connection on, incoming notifications, as well as keep using the smartphone to check notifications, e-mail, listen to music, etc.
Compared with the Galaxy S22 Ultra, the iPhone 14 Pro performed similarly. After 24 hours, both phones ended the test with an 84% charge. You can check PhoneBuff’s full video with all the details below:
