Arun Maini today shared a new side-by-side iPhone battery life video test on his YouTube channel Mrwhosetheboss, timing how long the new iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro models last on a single charge compared to older models, with equal brightness, settings, battery health, and usage. All of the devices are running iOS 14 without a SIM card inserted.
In the test, the iPhone 11 Pro outlasted both the 6.1-inch iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro, despite being a smaller 5.8-inch device. When the iPhone 12 Pro ran out of battery, the iPhone 11 Pro still had 18% battery life remaining, and when the iPhone 12 powered off, the iPhone 11 Pro still had 14% battery life remaining.
The final rankings ended up as follows:
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- iPhone 11 Pro Max: 8 hours and 29 minutes
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- iPhone 11 Pro: 7 hours and 36 minutes
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- iPhone 12: 6 hours and 41 minutes
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- iPhone 12 Pro: 6 hours and 35 minutes
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- iPhone 11: 5 hours and 8 minutes
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- iPhone XR: 4 hours and 31 minutes
- iPhone SE (2020): 3 hours and 59 minutes
These rankings are of course missing the iPhone 12 Pro Max and iPhone 12 Pro mini, which will be available to pre-order starting November 6.
Teardowns and regulatory filings have revealed that the entire iPhone 12 lineup features slightly lower battery capacities. iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro models share a 2,815 mAh battery, for example, while the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro are equipped with 3,110 mAh and 3,046 mAh batteries, respectively.
While the more power efficient A14 Bionic chip in Apple’s latest iPhones helps to offset the lower battery capacities, this test shows that the iPhone 11 Pro still lasts longer than the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro under heavy, continuous usage.
Apple’s tech specs indicate that the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro provide up to 17 hours of video playback, compared to up to 18 hours on the iPhone 11 Pro, so Apple does acknowledge that the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro have slightly less battery life.
It will be interesting to see a real-world battery life test for the iPhone 12 Pro Max, as Apple’s tech specs suggest that the device has equal battery life as the iPhone 11 Pro Max, at least based on its own metrics. Apple lists both devices as providing up to 20 hours of video playback and up to 80 hours of audio playback.