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iPhone 17 Pro 17 Pro battery - lackluster or unreasonable expectations?

E

ekinnyc

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 22, 2008
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Upgraded from my 13 pro in part due to the battery. So far, it’s been lackluster. Or maybe my expectations are too high?

With my 13 pro I would barely last thru the day, even when I got a brand new battery put in by apple, often requiring a charge if any moderate use was involved.

So far in the couple of days since the 17 pro has arrived, I’m finding that the battery isn’t SO much better. Saturday with 6:51 of screen time I was down to 5% by the evening.

Am I being unreasonable with my expectations? Or does this bear an exchange?
 
iPhone batteries take time to adapt to your phone usage - usually about a week before it dials itself in. Give it some time.
 
Its a huge upgrade from a 13. The 17 pro is a big upgrade from the 16 pro.

I don't notice any difference with my 17 pro max, vs my old 16 pro max, other than it doesn't get nearly as hot.
 
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I notice a big improvement in battery over my 13 Pro, especially after I upgraded the 13 to ios26 and/or if I left the house.

I work from home, so am on Wi-Fi exclusively most days. The 13 Pro battery, before ios26, would be around 30% at end of the day. After ios26, it’d be about 15% at the end of the day. But, on days when I went out, I’d usually have to give an extra charge before the end of the day both pre and post ios26. I hadn’t been on ios26 long, so it might have sorted itself and had more similar to pre-26 levels after a bit. But, I’ll never know now lol.

With the 17 Pro, so far, I can go out during the day and still have about 50% battery left at the end of the day. And this is with a phone that is still indexing, etc. So, I’m very happy with the 17 Pro battery so far.
 
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Lab1 said:
I notice a big improvement in battery over my 13 Pro, especially after I upgraded the 13 to ios26 and/or if I left the house.

I work from home, so am on Wi-Fi exclusively most days. The 13 Pro battery, before ios26, would be around 30% at end of the day. After ios26, it’d be about 15% at the end of the day. But, on days when I went out, I’d usually have to give an extra charge before the end of the day both pre and post ios26. I hadn’t been on ios26 long, so it might have sorted itself and had more similar to pre-26 levels after a bit. But, I’ll never know now lol.

With the 17 Pro, so far, I can go out during the day and still have about 50% battery left at the end of the day. And this is with a phone that is still indexing, etc. So, I’m very happy with the 17 Pro battery so far.
Click to expand...
maybe something is up with my settings, or how I’m using it then

I didn’t restore any backups, so no issues there. Background refresh and a bunch of location stuff is off, email is 15 min fetch, nothing egregious that I can think of but idk

Seems my experience is not quite matching yours
 
ant the ninja said:
So far my 17 Pro battery is insanely better than my 16 Pro was.
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That is nice to hear. Thought iPhone 16 Pro battery was weak. You notice any other improvements from 16 Pro to 17 Pro. Have not seen many people comment much on the differences yet in the real world.
 
Battery have been a beast for me. I'm using it more than normal and can't even kill it to 0%.

Here are the first 2 full charge.
IMG_3924.jpg
IMG_3926.jpg
 
I came from the 16 Pro Max to the 17 Pro, battery life numbers are similar on paper, but real life isn't quite as good... yet... Obviously, it's a new phone and it's still indexing and doing it's thing in the background, so I am sure within a week, it'll pretty good.
 
As I type this at 1:33 EDT, I’m at 66% with 3:21 of screen active time, 3:43 of screen idle

I really don’t know if I should return this, go back to my 11 pro for now, and try again once availability catches up
 
ekinnyc said:
As I type this at 1:33 EDT, I’m at 66% with 3:21 of screen active time, 3:43 of screen idle

I really don’t know if I should return this, go back to my 11 pro for now, and try again once availability catches up
Click to expand...
I don’t know that this is too unusual depending on the processes running. Yesterday, I had a total of 3:33 screen time and 1:25 idle. Pretty typical for me. I also went out for a few hours, so was on cellular rather than WiFi. I ended the day at 50%.
 
Lab1 said:
I don’t know that this is too unusual depending on the processes running. Yesterday, I had a total of 3:33 screen time and 1:25 idle. Pretty typical for me. I also went out for a few hours, so was on cellular rather than WiFi. I ended the day at 50%.
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Seems kind of crazy that they advertise 30+ hours of screen time and we’re happy to be getting four or five hours
 
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I’m kind of in the same boat… I don’t know if I was expecting more or if Ive been “spoiled” by having two Pro Maxes the past 4 years. Yesterday was my first full day of being able to use the phone since getting it Friday, and I had 4 hrs of sot but was at 60%. And it drains a lot overnight, or at least what I think is a lot. Or maybe it’s normal.

I’m trying to give it time, but my partners 17pm looks more and more tempting.
 
I’m using a 17 Pro (e-sim version) and I found battery life to be much better than 16 Pro. Probably very close to 16 Pro Max.

However, I am picking up a plain 17 tomorrow. I find that I’m not that big of a fan of the aluminum unibody, and I never used the telephoto lens all that much. If the 17 provides acceptable battery, I will retune the 17 Pro.
 
GDF said:
That is nice to hear. Thought iPhone 16 Pro battery was weak. You notice any other improvements from 16 Pro to 17 Pro. Have not seen many people comment much on the differences yet in the real world.
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Honestly not really other than battery life. Ios26 feels a bit smoother to me on here but that I’m sure is because of the processor and added memory but it didn’t run bad on my 16 pro.

I’m still finding ios26 a bit buggy here and there but overall it’s fine. It’s not a necessary upgrade from the 16 pro by any means. I only upgrade because I’m on the upgrade program.
 
ekinnyc said:
As I type this at 1:33 EDT, I’m at 66% with 3:21 of screen active time, 3:43 of screen idle

I really don’t know if I should return this, go back to my 11 pro for now, and try again once availability catches up
Click to expand...
3:25EDT here and sitting at 57% with 4h 13m of screen on time. I would be 40 or lower with my 16 pro on ios26 previously.
 
ekinnyc said:
Seems kind of crazy that they advertise 30+ hours of screen time and we’re happy to be getting four or five hours
Click to expand...

I never pay much attention to that because I figure it’s likely conducted under conditions that would not fit my typical usage. They call it “video playback” time rather than the more generic “screen on” time. I am guessing that video playback refers to something like this: You’re on a long flight with some movies already downloaded to your phone. The plane interior isn’t super bright, so you don’t need the brightness turned way up. You have airplane mode on, so background processes are much more limited than usual. This is not my typical daily usage lol.
 
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ekinnyc said:
Seems kind of crazy that they advertise 30+ hours of screen time and we’re happy to be getting four or five hours
Click to expand...

Because we know those are BS numbers.

I don’t use my phone to watch locally downloaded videos for most of my day. Maybe those stats are more useful for someone on a trans-Pacific flight on airplane mode.
 
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ekinnyc said:
As I type this at 1:33 EDT, I’m at 66% with 3:21 of screen active time, 3:43 of screen idle

I really don’t know if I should return this, go back to my 11 pro for now, and try again once availability catches up
Click to expand...

Today is my first full, typical day. Getting ready for bed, here’s where I stand for the day. Really not too bad and pretty comparable to my 16PM TBH.

IMG_0121.png
 
ekinnyc said:
Upgraded from my 13 pro in part due to the battery. So far, it’s been lackluster. Or maybe my expectations are too high?

With my 13 pro I would barely last thru the day, even when I got a brand new battery put in by apple, often requiring a charge if any moderate use was involved.

So far in the couple of days since the 17 pro has arrived, I’m finding that the battery isn’t SO much better. Saturday with 6:51 of screen time I was down to 5% by the evening.

Am I being unreasonable with my expectations? Or does this bear an exchange?
Click to expand...
You got to give it at least a week before judging battery life... background updates, indexing and I'm sure you spend more time than usual with the new phone...
 
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