I’ve covered the iPhone 16 battery life extensively in the past few weeks. Battery life is one of the things I’m interested in the most this year. It’s one reason to go for the iPhone 16 Plus instead of a smaller model, even though the base iPhone 16 model should offer better battery life than its predecessor. The same goes for the iPhone 16 Pro.
In recent real-life tests, the smaller iPhone 16 variants matched or nearly matched the iPhone 15 Pro Max. The iPhone 16 Pro Max offered the best battery life in those tests, supporting Apple’s claims that the new Pro Max provides the best battery life ever for this size iPhone.
In the same test, the iPhone 16 Pro Max outperformed its direct rival, the Galaxy S24 Ultra. But it turns out the iPhone 16 Pro Max won’t always win these battery tests. A new comparison found that the Galaxy S24 Ultra can outlast the iPhone 16 Pro Max by over an hour in conditions that are intended to replicate real-life use.
The Tom’s Guide test we looked at a few days ago said the iPhone 16 Pro Max lasts for 18 hours and 6 minutes in the following test:
We put the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and the iPhone 16 Pro Max through the Tom’s Guide battery test, which involves continuously surfing the web over a mobile connection at 150 nits of screen brightness.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra died after 16 hours and 46 minutes in the same test. Needless to say, that’s a massive difference.
YouTuber Mrwhosetheboss put the phones through a different battery life test, one that’s meant to replicate real-life usage more realistically.
All handsets in the test were running the newest non-beta version of available software and the same series of apps, whether it’s social networking, games, the camera, AI, or work apps. All phones are connected to Wi-Fi only. They had the same display brightness and, more importantly, they were all brand-new devices with brand-new batteries.
The test aimed to measure the battery life of each iPhone 16 model and compare it to two iPhone 15 variants as well as the Galaxy S24 Ultra. The YouTuber’s conclusions are similar to what we saw from other tests. All iPhone 16 models will offer great battery life, especially when compared to previous generations. But the Galaxy S24 Ultra won the contest in this case.
Here are the figures:
- iPhone 15: 7 hours and 45 minutes
- iPhone 16: 8 hours and 19 minutes
- iPhone 16 Pro: 8 hours and 19 minutes
- iPhone 16 Plus: 8 hours and 45 minutes
- iPhone 15 Pro Max: 9 hours and 35 minutes
- iPhone 16 Pro Max: 11 hours and 22 minutes
- Galaxy S24 Ultra: 12 hours and 31 minutes
The results are clearly different from the previous test. The iPhone 16 and 16 Pro couldn’t match the iPhone 15 Pro Max. More importantly, the Galaxy S24 Ultra was the winner in this test.
However, the conclusion is similar. All four iPhone 16 variants will get you better battery life than their corresponding iPhone 15 models. You should have no problem using them for a full day on a single charge, even if you spend a lot of time on the handset.
The clip also shows that all phones can recharge faster than the Galaxy S24 Ultra with a generic charger. That being said, Samsung’s phone does support faster 45W charging speeds if you need them.
Finally, the YouTuber indicates there’s a good reason Android phones have gotten better battery life this year compared to previous generations. They’re running Android 14, which stops apps from running in the background and consuming more energy. If the conclusion holds up, it’s great news for the Android camp.
For more iPhone 16 battery news, check out the official iPhone 16 battery capacities and the new “electric glue” tech for Apple’s non-pro iPhone 16 models.
