my previous phone was a 12 pro max with 89% battery health by the time i traded it in. i had it from launch day until launch day of the 15 pro max. it still done me good but i could notice the drop in capacity. i bought a portable battery to top it up when out and about but i didn't really need to use it all of the time just if i was travelling or the odd time at work. the battery was still great on it.
i have a 15 pro max now and the battery life is insane. i keep it at 20-80% (charge limited to 80%) and it lasts so long. i last charged to 68% about 44 hours ago and i still have 42% left. to be fair i haven't been using it a lot but still a decent bit of usage. on more demanding days i can still easily stay between 20-80%. it's crazy to think that i'm not making use of 40% of the batteries capacity. once or twice i i have charged it to ~90-95% and drained it to 15% and it was a lot more impressive.
i can't think of any situation or scenario where i would need to use the full capacity of the battery. so i'm quite happy to stay in the 20-80% range to help keep the battery healthy as long as possible. i think this might be the first time i've owned a smartphone and felt satisfied with the battery. the 12 pro max was great but 15 pro max is the first time i've thought...i don't need all this battery but i'll take it anyway
i'm old enough to have used dumb phones which lasted weeks so when we all moved to smartphones the battery hit was a disappointment. slowly but surely we've got the battery life in smartphones to a point where they don't hold us back.
on my phone i don't play games or make heavy use of recording videos. i use it for taking photos of my cats, browsing safari/social media (ig, tiktok, reddit, x), watching youtube, listening to spotify, accessing important apps like banking/utilities, organising appointments/reminders, and sending messages...and making phone calls 😱