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How much screen on time can the 6S Plus achieve normally?

Sensamic

Sensamic

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Mar 26, 2010
3,123
752
Hey everyone.

Quick question. I'm interested in the 6S Plus, mainly for it's amazing battery life, but I want to have the screen with maximum brightness always.

Anyone who does this, what is your screen on time daily? Is it much worse than having the brightness at 80% or less? Does it eat the battery really fast or is battery life still amazing?

Thanks.
 
6S+ here

Normally get 5-7 hours on screen time depending on what I'm doing.

Brightness at ~60%
Use wifi when possible, otherwise very stable 4G signal
Mostly streaming video, browsing Internet, a little gaming

Brightness level really makes a difference, at max brightness the phone chews through battery.
 
Apple conducts battery tests at 50% brightness, use their number and then adjust accordingly based on your brightness level. Why keep it so bright all the time? Why not just use auto-brightness and have it match to the ambient light?
The backlight will use more energy than any other part of the phone, unless if your cell signal was spotty then the radio does.
 
Are we talking about actual screen on time or just usage?
 
C DM said:
Are we talking about actual screen on time or just usage?
Click to expand...

Pretty sure OP mentioned screen on time, which is different from usage. Since screen is a huge battery drain - the usage time and actual screen on time are actually two different things.
 
at 100% screen brightness the battery will only last maybe 4-5 hours. If you are doing CPU intensive work the battery will last even less. Also the phone can overheat and slow down the clock speed on your CPU and will automatically dim your display until it cools.
 
With such a large screen, 100% brightness will only get around 5 hours of light web browsing and no games or other intensive tasks.
I ran it at that level just to see what would happen and it literally died before lunch.
I normally keep my display at 30% on all my phones. I don't like to have such a bright display, it literally hurts my eyes.
 
Applefan4 said:
Pretty sure OP mentioned screen on time, which is different from usage. Since screen is a huge battery drain - the usage time and actual screen on time are actually two different things.
Click to expand...
I was asking because iOS doesn't really track the on screen time as it does usage time (you can sort of add up the on screen time of apps that get listed but that's not necessarily based on when the battery was last fully charged).
 
Couldn't usage be a close approximation of screen-on time if background app refresh is turned off and you don't use anything like music streaming?

I get about 12 hours of usage, and that's on LTE the entire time, but with some music streaming thrown in.
 
Love Divine said:
Couldn't usage be a close approximation of screen-on time if background app refresh is turned off and you don't use anything like music streaming?

I get about 12 hours of usage, and that's on LTE the entire time, but with some music streaming thrown in.
Click to expand...
Could be closer but background usage can still happen without background app refresh and various system services can run and do things with the screen being off too. So sometimes it's close, sometimes it's not that far but also not necessrily as close.
 
Qbnkelt said:
With such a large screen, 100% brightness will only get around 5 hours of light web browsing and no games or other intensive tasks.
I ran it at that level just to see what would happen and it literally died before lunch.
I normally keep my display at 30% on all my phones. I don't like to have such a bright display, it literally hurts my eyes.
Click to expand...
I'm the same way at night. Brightness at like 20% and then all the way down in a dark room. During the day I'm at about 70% brightness.
 
Really? You keep it that bright during the day too? see, I keep it at 30 all the time. I'm using night shift now and that feels better at night.
 
While I know the OP is planning on using it at 100% brightness, i feel like it's worth pointing out that it's fairly unrealistic on the 6S Plus. The screen is fairly bright, and at 100% it's SUPER bright.

As others have said though, expect 5 hours or so of normal usage at such a high brightness setting.
 
matt_on_a_mtn said:
While I know the OP is planning on using it at 100% brightness, i feel like it's worth pointing out that it's fairly unrealistic on the 6S Plus. The screen is fairly bright, and at 100% it's SUPER bright.

As others have said though, expect 5 hours or so of normal usage at such a high brightness setting.
Click to expand...
I was thinking the same thing. It is blinding bright. It's only bearable at 100% if you're outside in the sun.
 
Last time I measured the screen on time it managed a bit over 11 hours. Mostly Safari, twitter and other similar tasks. Brightness around 30%.
 
I'd be delighted if Apple decided to make battery life a priority. Not ahead of everything else, but simply decide that iPhones should have industry leading battery run times.

The amount of battery life I get from my iPhone 6S Plus is about average as compared to the other current model year Smartphones I have.

Then there's my stellar Samsung S7 Edge with its amazing long life battery. GSM ARENA Endurance ratings place the S7 at a very impressive 98 Hours. Suddenly my iPhone 6S Plus battery life is looking rather poor.

Although iPhones are already rather obscenely high priced, I'd pay a bit more if Apple would get serious, do their best and give their smartphones class leading battery life.
 
C DM said:
How did you measure it?
Click to expand...
Did not use the phone for 24h, so that the apps listed were only for the current charge. Then I depleted the battery within 24h and added together the time the screen was on for each app. The sum was 11h 17 min.
2cnbeia.jpg
 
Sensamic said:
Hey everyone.

Quick question. I'm interested in the 6S Plus, mainly for it's amazing battery life, but I want to have the screen with maximum brightness always.

Anyone who does this, what is your screen on time daily? Is it much worse than having the brightness at 80% or less? Does it eat the battery really fast or is battery life still amazing?

Thanks.
Click to expand...


How do you measure screen on time under iOS?
 
The 6S Plus has a great battery, but you're not going to get the amazing results you seek at 100% brightness all the time.
 
I also see about 5 hours on my 6s+ with the screen at full brightness. But the only time it needs to be that bright is using it for a GPS in the car on a bright sunny day.
 
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