Apple’s new iPhone 11 lineup the company unveiled in September came with a few surprises for once, with some early renders and physical designs that leaked out shown to be a bit off and allowing Apple to actually give fans a few things they weren’t expecting. But it wasn’t just the designs that surprised. The next-generation A13 Bionic processor in the phones also, according to Apple, packs 20% more power than its predecessor, allowing for big performance improvements yet again in this newest iPhone series.
Specifically, though, what does that improvement mean in terms of battery life? To answer that question, the Phonebuff YouTube channel has just posted the results of its latest battery test head-to-head, and the winner is clear.
As a reminder about the Phonebuff tests, a robotic arm, automated chatbot, and custom scripts are used to try and keep things fair as well as simulating real-world smartphone usage as much as possible. Speaking of the test, it’s comprised of a variety of 1-hour sessions in which the phones are studied as to how well they handle browser usage, phone calls, emails, and the like. And to get a comprehensive look at battery life, the phones are put through a 16-hour standby test.
The test kicks off with a phone call test, with both devices put through the paces of dealing with a 1-hour phone call. At that point, the iPhone battery has only dropped by 1%, compared to a 5% drop for the Note 10+. For the next several rounds of testing, the story is similar. Messaging, emails, browser comparisons, scrolling through Instagram on both devices — the iPhone 11 Pro Max battery stays ahead of the Note 10+ and barely slips at all, with the former’s 4000 mAh battery more than holding its own against the Note 10+’s bigger 4300 mAh version.
As the testing finishes up with comparing both phones’ browser usage and how much Instagram usage drains the battery, at this point, it seems the iPhone is still some 8 percentage points ahead. The rest of the testing pretty much follows this same trajectory. After the full 16-hour standby test, for example, the iPhone battery has only shaved off another 6%, compared to a 10% drop for the note — putting the iPhone a full 12 percentage points ahead of the Note at this point in the matchup.
Gaming, interestingly, doesn’t seem to shave too much off either phone’s battery. After one hour of playing Alto’s Adventure, the difference between the two phones isn’t that big, though the iPhone is still 1 percentage point ahead. Pressing on towards the end, the 11 Pro Max still manages to have a little juice left after the Note 10+ finally dies, which means:
The iPhone 11 Pro Max, as you can watch in the video, is officially the first phone ever tested as part of the Phonebuff battery comparison to make it to the app cycle test. That’s when apps are constantly opened, loaded, closed, and then that process is repeated until the phone dies. Finally, finally, after 1 hour and 5 minutes of that testing, the iPhone finally dies, which brings us to the final tally for each device.
Per Phonebuff, the iPhone 11 Pro Max battery lasted for 27 hours and five minutes, while the Note 10+ hung on for 25 hours and 3 minutes, allowing the iPhone 11 Pro Max to now sit at the very top of the complete battery test rankings, which you can check out here.
Meanwhile, the full battery test video from PhoneBuff is embedded at the top of this post.
