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Battery life 38mm vs 42mm

AngusW

AngusW

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 19, 2013
418
51
Is there going to to be any difference between the battery life on each model? The way I see it 42mm would have a slightly larger battery only because the watch display is slightly larger. What do other people think?
 
I did see a post that mentioned that the 42mm had a 'slightly' better battery life....I'm not sure of the technical interpretation of 'slightly'.

I would have thought that the bigger display would have negated the bigger battery and they would both work out roughly the same
 
twisted-pixel said:
I would have thought that the bigger display would have negated the bigger battery and they would both work out roughly the same
Click to expand...
The display is off most of the time, and all the other components in the different size models are exactly the same, meaning logically you're going top get better battery life from the larger model... :)

Also, the display may not be as proportionally larger as the battery volume is proportionally bigger (one grows by the square, the other by the cube), meaning even with the display on, the larger Watch might still experience better battery life, although by how much is an academic pursuit until people get hands-on experience with these things.
 
Apple site says it is more, but it won't be significant.
They've been desperate to make the battery life as good as possible so if it was significant enough to make even 1 hour different they would have absolutely advertised that the 38 did 18hours and 42 did 19 as they can show off more then.
It's probably such a small amount you wouldn't really notice it.
 
I am Sampson said:
Apple site says it is more, but it won't be significant.
They've been desperate to make the battery life as good as possible so if it was significant enough to make even 1 hour different they would have absolutely advertised that the 38 did 18hours and 42 did 19 as they can show off more then.
It's probably such a small amount you wouldn't really notice it.
Click to expand...

Cool thanks that's what I thought. Definitely still leaning towards the 38mm in that case.
 
The rumblings I've heard using the case size estimates (we won't really know until it hits real hands) are a 10% increase. Which makes sense proportionally.
 
38 vs 42 battery

Sorry if this has already been discussed. Do you think the 42 mm :apple: Watch will last longer than the 38 mm :apple: Watch since it technically has room for a larger battery?
 

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For many even 30 minutes more could justify the extra $50. I have huge hands and bad eyes so 42mm will not only look better but should be slightly easier to read.
 
I read somewhere that it will be not noticeable. If it were measurable in hours, we would have heard or read about it. I'm sure Apple would have loved to tout that the 42 can push 20 hours or even 19, but it probably gets anywhere from an extra 10-20 minutes.

It's better from a marketing perspective to just say "better" battery life instead of "15 more minutes!"
 
J4B3 said:
The rumblings I've heard using the case size estimates (we won't really know until it hits real hands) are a 10% increase. Which makes sense proportionally.
Click to expand...

I haven't seen that estimate, but let's do the math assuming the 18 hours is for the 38mm case as described by Apple's battery site:

18 hours + 10% increase = 1 hour 48 minutes

If that's true, that is a pretty big boost. I'm sure the larger screen eats into whatever advantage the bigger battery brings pretty well.
 
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