Apple announced the iPhone 13, iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13 Pro, and iPhone 13 Pro Max on Tuesday. The lineup brings a number of notable changes to Apple’s flagship device, including smaller notches, brighter screens, and better cameras. But the most useful change might also be the least flashy. Each and every iPhone 13 model features a larger battery than its iPhone 12 counterpart. Apple claims that this will result in better battery life across the iPhone 13 lineup.
iPhone 13 battery life vs. iPhone 12 battery life
During its keynote address at the California Streaming event on Tuesday, Apple revealed “most users will experience” the following battery life improvements over the last generation: iPhone 13 mini will last 1.5 hours longer than iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 13 will last 2.5 hours longer than iPhone 12, iPhone 13 Pro will last 1.5 hours longer than iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 13 Pro Max will last 2.5 hours longer than iPhone 13 Pro Max. But if we dig deeper, the changes look even more impressive.
“iPhone 13 has a faster chip, faster 5G speeds, a brighter OLED display, and the most advanced dual-camera system ever in an iPhone,” said Kaiann Drance, VP of iPhone Product Marketing, at the event. “And with all these new capabilities, the iPhone 13 lineup has better battery life.”
If you head to the technical specifications pages for iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro, you can find even more granular details about each model’s respective battery. Specifically, Apple lists how long video and audio playback should last on each model. Here’s the breakdown:
iPhone 13 mini vs. iPhone 12 mini
- Video playback: 17 hours vs. 15 hours
- Audio playback: 55 hours vs. 50 hours
iPhone 13 vs. iPhone 12
- Video playback: 19 hours vs. 17 hours
- Audio playback: 75 hours vs. 65 hours
iPhone 13 Pro vs. iPhone 12 Pro
- Video playback: 22 hours vs. 17 hours
- Audio playback: 75 hours vs. 65 hours
iPhone 13 Pro Max vs. iPhone 12 Pro Max
- Video playback: 28 hours vs. 20 hours
- Audio playback: 95 hours vs. 80 hours
As you can see, these are clearly notable improvements across the board. Apple ascribes the battery life improvements to the “A15 Bionic, more power-efficient components, a bigger battery, and power optimizations from our deep hardware and software integration.”
Best of all, the only sacrifice that Apple seemed to make was making the phones ever so slightly thicker. All four of the iPhone 13 models are 0.30 inches (7.65mm) thick. Meanwhile, the iPhone 12 lineup was 0.29 inches (7.4mm) thick. For two hours of extra battery life, I’m willing to accept an extra quarter of a millimeter of thickness. Also, the iPhone 11 was 8mm thick and we survived that.
