iPhone 12 iPhone 12 Range - Poor Battery Life When Gaming

[Psychicbob]

Some pretty legit reviews appearing about circa 3 hour battery life when gaming on iPhone 12/12 Pro. Poor optimisation on the part of the games or impact of small battery? Anyone with first hand experience of this?

Had to edit post as many replies seemed to think I expected gaming not to drain battery life. I do expect it to but some tests have indicated it is far worse than on 11 range.

 

[Cryates]

Could be a combination of things, but one thing for sure is gaming will always zap the battery quicker than anything else.

 

[HEK]

Gaming is a plug in sport in my opinion. CPU cranking out, GPU cranking out, usually have screen turned up brighter, and now add radio chip slamming the firewall, yeah definitely plugged in to power adapter or add on battery pack. Even when I play online with MacBook Pro I need to stay plugged in if I want to play more than an hour. Nice part, as winter setting in, gaming makes for a nice heater.

people have dedicated gaming machines, liquid cooled, that dim the neighborhood lights and you complaining that a phone eats up battery power? Bet it gets hot as well. Need to be sitting on thermal cooling pad and plugged in to keep from being throttled back.

 

[tekchic]

Fortnite (RIP) was always a pretty horrible battery hog on both my XS Max and iPad Pro 2018. I could clear through about 8% of my battery in 20 minutes of playing (60fps on XS Max, 120fps on iPad Pro). Play for an hour or two and it's probably down to the 50's or less. The most modern games are going to generate a lot of heat and eat battery regardless.

I played plugged in for the most part when I did play Fortnite on iOS (although some say you get fps drops when plugged in). These days with Apple Arcade my iPhone/iPad heat up and eat battery but it depends on the game. Some are worse than others.

You're not gonna get 8hrs straight out of any phone gaming.

 

[Psychicbob]

Gaming is a plug in sport in my opinion. CPU cranking out, GPU cranking out, usually have screen turned up brighter, and now add radio chip slamming the firewall, yeah definitely plugged in to power adapter or add on battery pack. Even when I play online with MacBook Pro I need to stay plugged in if I want to play more than an hour. Nice part, as winter setting in, gaming makes for a nice heater.

people have dedicated gaming machines, liquid cooled, that dim the neighborhood lights and you complaining that a phone eats up battery power? Bet it gets hot as well. Need to be sitting on thermal cooling pad and plugged in to keep from being throttled back.

No complaints here. Reread my post. I was asking if any new owners had noticed this.

 

[tonybarnaby]

As a lifelong gamer since the NES, I have never understood phone gaming. If you wanna play golf clash or something for a bit I get that, but gaming for hours at a time on a phone just doesn’t make a ton of sense. People use Xbox controllers on their galaxy note phones. At that point, why not get a console?

 

[IsaacM]

I really hope they add a couple of mm onto the iPhone 12S body and give us worthwhile battery life next year.

 

[Septembersrain]

Gaming kills my 11 Pro Max.

I think it's just one of those intensive tasks on a device.

 

[LFC2020]

Don’t know how much you should read into these YouTube battery test, since no one uses their phone the way they run these battery test.

Phone arena done a gaming battery test on the 12s vs 11 pro, the 11 pro came out well on top during gaming.

Maybe games aren’t optimized properly for the 12s yet.

 

[Septembersrain]

Don’t know how much you should read into these YouTube battery test, since no one uses their phone the way they run these battery test.

Phone arena done a gaming battery test on the 12s vs 11 pro, the 11 pro came out well on top during gaming.

Maybe games aren’t optimized properly for the 12s yet.

Really good point! A lot of games wouldn't be updated yet as I've seen many wait until all devices are available so they can optimize for all different screen sizes at once.

 

[HEK]

Fortnite (RIP) was always a pretty horrible battery hog on both my XS Max and iPad Pro 2018. I could clear through about 8% of my battery in 20 minutes of playing (60fps on XS Max, 120fps on iPad Pro). Play for an hour or two and it's probably down to the 50's or less. The most modern games are going to generate a lot of heat and eat battery regardless.

I played plugged in for the most part when I did play Fortnite on iOS (although some say you get fps drops when plugged in). These days with Apple Arcade my iPhone/iPad heat up and eat battery but it depends on the game. Some are worse than others.

You're not gonna get 8hrs straight out of any phone gaming.

Sitting naked phone on bag of frozen peas really keeps the thermals down. added benefit if you play long enough, you can open pea bag and eat the cooked peas.

 

[Stolz25]

As a lifelong gamer since the NES, I have never understood phone gaming. If you wanna play golf clash or something for a bit I get that, but gaming for hours at a time on a phone just doesn’t make a ton of sense. People use Xbox controllers on their galaxy note phones. At that point, why not get a console?

Agreed. I like some games that work on on iphone like tower defense type, but when I play Fortnite I get on the PC. I’ve never understood gaming on the phone like that, especially when most of the people doing it probably already have a console.

 

[tekchic]

Sitting naked phone on bag of frozen peas really keeps the thermals down. added benefit if you play long enough, you can open pea bag and eat the cooked peas.

I have done this! Except for eating the peas haha.

And for the record I have PS2/3/4, Switch, Wii, Vita, 3DS, and a gaming rig. I actively game on the PC, PS4, Switch, and Vita still (rarely 3DS now).

I've just always enjoyed playing Fortnite with touch on my iPad -- before I was forced to convert to PC, I had a 35% win rate in duos. I've made the switch and am loving building on a PC due to the speed, but I'm still not as good as I was on iPad.

I loathe freemium games, but I do enjoy Apple Arcade / premium story-driven adventures mostly on my iPad/XS Max due to portability. Especially in the before times when I had to go into the office, it was nice to hide in the car over lunch and game on iPad / XS Max.

 

[Renho]

Agreed. I like some games that work on on iphone like tower defense type, but when I play Fortnite I get on the PC. I’ve never understood gaming on the phone like that, especially when most of the people doing it probably already have a console.

Gaming on the road in cars, busses, long rides etc...I mean phones are meant for portable. But that gaming test done and the 11 pro lasting twice as long than the 12 basically says something is wrong you know...

 

[Stolz25]

Gaming on the road in cars, busses, long rides etc...I mean phones are meant for portable. But that gaming test done and the 11 pro lasting twice as long than the 12 basically says something is wrong you know...

Well we already knew the battery was smaller on the 12. I would guess that most of your chip optimization they made to save battery isn’t in effect when you are doing heavy tasks like gaming. I agree it’s not good, but it’s also not completely unexpected.

I’m a person who would take a heavier/thicker phone for more battery anyway. And yet every year the batter gets smaller it seems like.

 

[Caesars]

I’ve ended up gaming on my 11ProMax and using my 12 as a normal phone (sadly), hopefully Apple will release the SBC so I won’t have to lug around two phones.

 

[Renho]

Well we already knew the battery was smaller on the 12. I would guess that most of your chip optimization they made to save battery isn’t in effect when you are doing heavy tasks like gaming. I agree it’s not good, but it’s also not completely unexpected.

I’m a person who would take a heavier/thicker phone for more battery anyway. And yet every year the batter gets smaller it seems like.

I think if your a max user, you want big and MORE battery. It’s a shame others are at 5,000mah and we can’t even get a 4,000. Imagine having a phone that you don’t need to charge for 2 days! Wishful thinking!

 

[Joho2078]

As a lifelong gamer since the NES, I have never understood phone gaming. If you wanna play golf clash or something for a bit I get that, but gaming for hours at a time on a phone just doesn’t make a ton of sense. People use Xbox controllers on their galaxy note phones. At that point, why not get a console?

Unless you have the fold 2 like me

 

[edfoo]

 

[edhchoe]

Overnight my 12 loses maybe 1%. I am very impressed.

 

[edfoo]

Overnight my 12 loses maybe 1%. I am very impressed.

View attachment 1082395

Did you game overnight?

 

[edhchoe]

Did you game overnight?

gaming drains battery in any phone.
but some phones lose a lot more than 1% overnight. My 12 impresses me because it loses maybe 0.5% overnight.

do you think OP should be worried that his phone lost a lot of battery because he played game?
Or should I not be impressed when my phone lost less than 1% overnight?
I think my fact is more interesting than OP's fact.

 

[Joho2078]

It's poor battery life with calls text and YouTube videos

 

[edfoo]

gaming drains battery in any phone.
but some phones lose a lot more than 1% overnight. My 12 impresses me because it loses maybe 0.5% overnight.

do you think OP should be worried that his phone lost a lot of battery because he played game?
Or should I not be impressed when my phone lost less than 1% overnight?
I think my fact is more interesting than OP's fact.

I think OP wants to discuss about battery performance with gaming, not about standby time or other tasks in this thread.

 

[1rottenapple]

As a lifelong gamer since the NES, I have never understood phone gaming. If you wanna play golf clash or something for a bit I get that, but gaming for hours at a time on a phone just doesn’t make a ton of sense. People use Xbox controllers on their galaxy note phones. At that point, why not get a console?

I had that same mentality but I started playing pubg mobile in March 2017. I was so addicted for close to 2 years and having a squad I regularly played with was awesome. So many good fun time’s in that battle royale game and I didn’t spend any money on it.
But going back to the thread “poor battery life” could be a combo of poor optimization (new hardware and new software), more powerful processor.