iPhone 12 iPhone 12 Mini Battery Life

[MistrSynistr]

Anyone experiencing battery drain from iMessage and using it “often”.

im not sure what to expect of the battery in this, I feel like it lasts and it doesn’t.

should moderate use have me down to say....20% from 8am to 8pm?

 

[dmk1974]

Has anyone done a comparison of all day use of 5G vs all day use of only LTE? Curious if LTE adds significant time.

 

[skous]

After going to 14.2.1 I noticed a 40% drop overnight from 22:00-07:00 with NO Apps running.....
Was 100% on the MagSafe at 20:00, took it off with no backgrouns Apps, and in the morning it was 61%.

terrible

anyone else experiencing this?

 

[MistrSynistr]

I leave my phone plugged in at night so I will need to see what happens and test it.

But I DO feel like there is just battery drain on standby with the Mini, regardless if it's overnight or not.

It FEELS like if you use the phone for a brief period then set it down for awhile, check the battery, it goes down like 4% or something where it should only go down 1%.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Anyone experiencing battery drain from iMessage and using it “often”.

im not sure what to expect of the battery in this, I feel like it lasts and it doesn’t.

should moderate use have me down to say....20% from 8am to 8pm?

Your moderate use doesn’t seem out of the ordinary. You aren’t going to get the kind of battery life the large iPhones get. Screen on Time is anywhere from 5 - 8 hours with the mini, depending on signal strength, apps used, screen brightness etc.

 

[MistrSynistr]

Your moderate use doesn’t seem out of the ordinary. You aren’t going to get the kind of battery life the large iPhones get. Screen on Time is anywhere from 5 - 8 hours with the mini, depending on signal strength, apps used, screen brightness etc.

Thanks for the response.

I had an XS at 80% capacity and I feel like my Mini is getting the "same" day as it...I expected with a new battery and Apple saying and extra hour over the XS it would be a little bigger.

 

[maj71303]

I'm a very light user of my phone so the 12 mini last me all day. I could stretch mine probably 2 days and still have some power left for the third morning. I feel people underestimate their own use and foolishly thought they wouldn't see a difference from a bigger device to a smaller one. If you are always using your phone for personal and business use this isn't the device for you. If you are playing lots of games and media on your device, this is not the device for you.

If you are constantly texting and messaging back and forth with people this is probably not the device for you. If your constantly pretty much always got your phone in your hand and spending hours upon hours on your device then wise up and get the bigger version as battery life on the 12 mini will not fit your needs unless you enjoy recharging your phone a lot.

TLDR; Wise up and get the phone with the battery that suits your use. Also don't be naive and underestimate how much your face is glued to your phone.

My daily screen on time average is 1h 45m. my total time for this past week is 12h 16m.

 

[mrboult]

The latest iOS update seems to have fixed the 12 mini’s battery drain. I now can go hours and lose only a couple percent of my charge (whereas previously I’d lose about 15% with the phone just sitting in my pocket).

This is my experience as well. Suddenly after the update yesterday and today have been a different world of improved battery life.

I’m not a heavy user at all, but for the first 5 days or so, my mini was basically empty at bedtime. Last couple of days I’m still well over 50% at bed time.

 

[yticolev]

Good for its size .

Better than my larger 6S. Light user here in terms of screen time (less than 2 hours a day apparently), but never had a phone I didn't have to plug in at night since flip phones. Now an hour a day is good enough, or even just plugged in on short drives. Mind you, I do see battery life dropping between 15 and 20% at night and wonder what that is about.

Also, just played with my cellular settings. According to Verizon, I need to update the plan I'm on to access 5G at all. Phone was set to auto and displayed 5G on the lock screen. Toggled to LTE only, and guess what, speed was better on SpeedTest app. Presumably lower battery drain as well, not having to hunt and choose what to use, which apparently the phone does despite 5G (not even low bands according to a store rep) not allowed on my plan.

 

[4pp13]

How much battery impact does 5g have in the end, is it known? I get 5g inside as well as outside so have let wifi fall to that. It’s not much faster than 4g (speed tested against another phone), but the network is way less congested (in fact it’s rather frustrating to have lost the 3g option in battling network congestion).

The mini seems like a huge step down from previous iphone 11 with same usage. But added to bouts of 5g, it’s been trouble getting the brightness settings right on the OLED vs the easy, default to lowest all the time LED.

 

[MistrSynistr]

I'm a very light user of my phone so the 12 mini last me all day. I could stretch mine probably 2 days and still have some power left for the third morning. I feel people underestimate their own use and foolishly thought they wouldn't see a difference from a bigger device to a smaller one. If you are always using your phone for personal and business use this isn't the device for you. If you are playing lots of games and media on your device, this is not the device for you.

If you are constantly texting and messaging back and forth with people this is probably not the device for you. If your constantly pretty much always got your phone in your hand and spending hours upon hours on your device then wise up and get the bigger version as battery life on the 12 mini will not fit your needs unless you enjoy recharging your phone a lot.

TLDR; Wise up and get the phone with the battery that suits your use. Also don't be naive and underestimate how much your face is glued to your phone.

My daily screen on time average is 1h 45m. my total time for this past week is 12h 16m.

Someone like you shouldn’t even be in this thread, you don’t even need a phone that doubles as a computing device and internet access point. 1 hour of screen time all you need is a burner flip phone.

A smart phone is for...personal and business use.

 

[maj71303]

Someone like you shouldn’t even be in this thread, you don’t even need a phone that doubles as a computing device and internet access point. 1 hour of screen time all you need is a burner flip phone.

A smart phone is for...personal and business use.

it's an iPhone not a full blown computer. What a smartphone does is limited in function and can't full well operate as a computer doing task in an office like environment. I use it to do what I need and then I put it down. Just because I don't have my face in my phone to claim I got 6 -7 hours screen on time today urpppp derrrrrp doesn't mean I don't use my phone. My life doesn't revolve around my phone and I don't need to consume media which serves no purpose. I'm a purpose driven user that operates on a do the task and end it at that approach. I guess it just means I have a life and it doesn't revolve around looking at the portable device in my pocket all the time.

Maybe folks need to put their device down and function in the real world. Maybe interact with their fellow man / women and heal one another instead of mindless media consumption and false information they get bombarded with in the online fantasy world called the internet.

 

[MarkX]

Someone like you shouldn’t even be in this thread, you don’t even need a phone that doubles as a computing device and internet access point. 1 hour of screen time all you need is a burner flip phone.

A smart phone is for...personal and business use.

With an attitude like that you shouldn’t be in this thread, probably even this forum.

1 hour or 8 hours, it doesn’t matter, all opinions are allowed.

I’d also suggest that the poster stating that they only spent an average of 1 hr 45 mins on screen is a healthy amount of time to be spent staring at a small screen over the course of a day.

 

[aakshey]

With an attitude like that you shouldn’t be in this thread, probably even this forum.

1 hour or 8 hours, it doesn’t matter, all opinions are allowed.

I’d also suggest that the poster stating that they only spent an average of 1 hr 45 mins on screen is a healthy amount of time to be spent staring at a small screen over the course of a day.

Everybody has a right to use products they like. Nobody should judge usage.

 

[4pp13]

With an attitude like that you shouldn’t be in this thread, probably even this forum.

1 hour or 8 hours, it doesn’t matter, all opinions are allowed.

I’d also suggest that the poster stating that they only spent an average of 1 hr 45 mins on screen is a healthy amount of time to be spent staring at a small screen over the course of a day.

Funnily enough, part of why I bought the mini is to be more like the previous poster who “barely” uses the phone.

If it doesn’t have good battery life for heavy usage, that may be a feature so that encouragement to be on the device less for “useless” things happens. (This is working better in theory than in practice)

 

[FeliApple]

Funnily enough, part of why I bought the mini is to be more like the previous poster who “barely” uses the phone.

If it doesn’t have good battery life for heavy usage, that may be a feature so that encouragement to be on the device less for “useless” things happens. (This is working better in theory than in practice)

“That may be a feature”. The things you have to read... It has worse battery life because of its size, both battery size and device size. There’s no feature, and Apple’s ideal world would be the iPhone 11 Pro Max on iOS 13’s battery life on every single device they make. That’s obviously impossible. Apple wants you to use and buy more things on your phone, not less.

 

[Apple_Robert]

it's an iPhone not a full blown computer. What a smartphone does is limited in function and can't full well operate as a computer doing task in an office like environment. I use it to do what I need and then I put it down. Just because I don't have my face in my phone to claim I got 6 -7 hours screen on time today urpppp derrrrrp doesn't mean I don't use my phone. My life doesn't revolve around my phone and I don't need to consume media which serves no purpose. I'm a purpose driven user that operates on a do the task and end it at that approach. I guess it just means I have a life and it doesn't revolve around looking at the portable device in my pocket all the time.

Maybe folks need to put their device down and function in the real world. Maybe interact with their fellow man / women and heal one another instead of mindless media consumption and false information they get bombarded with in the online fantasy world called the internet.

Your post is making way too much rational sense. A lot of people on the forum aren’t used to that.

While I see my mini as a computer most of the time, I don’t treat it as such. I prefer to use my iPad Pro like a computer. Trying to do everything on the phone is just not practical for me. And if I wanted to go that route as so many here have, that would mean getting a huge phone. I am done carrying a brick around. I have better things to carry around

 

[4pp13]

“That may be a feature”. The things you have to read... It has worse battery life because of its size, both battery size and device size. There’s no feature, and Apple’s ideal world would be the iPhone 11 Pro Max on iOS 13’s battery life on every single device they make. That’s obviously impossible. Apple wants you to use and buy more things on your phone, not less.

The idea of it being a "feature" is more personal than anything, not actual reality. You're right, Apple will win no matter what. A forever battery and more software consumption == £$€ and a battery that's always nearing empty == £$€ (I will probably buy a MagSafe puck that would never have been considered with longer battery life and if a MagSafe battery pack does come out, that will indeed be quite tempting).

Your post is making way too much rational sense. A lot of people on the forum aren’t used to that.

While I see my mini as a computer, most of the time, I don’t treat it as such. I prefer to use my iPad Pro like a computer. Trying to do everything on the phone is just not practical for me. And if I wanted to go that route as so many here have, that would be getting a huge phone. I am done carrying a brick around. I have better things to carry around

This is a very important point. Nobody in this thread is regularly listing what other devices they have to hand. Fwiw, I also have an iPad Pro and cannot do anything of serious value on the phone compared to the iPad, even when the phone is pretty giant.

 

[alexhardaker]

The latest iOS update seems to have fixed the 12 mini’s battery drain. I now can go hours and lose only a couple percent of my charge (whereas previously I’d lose about 15% with the phone just sitting in my pocket).

There was an issue with battery drain? I thought that was normal behaviour ?

 

[mzd]

This hasn’t been typical for me, but, wow, lost approx 25% overnight.

 

[1rottenapple]

I really hope they create a slim magsafe battery back that’s 1000 mah. Just enough to boost the battery for heavy day use. I’d love to use one when traveling but keep it off most day’s use.

 

[dmk1974]

I know they are not perfect, but they are comparative at least. Is there a battery drain test video or benchmark published that compares 5G vs LTE (not the 5G Auto...just the straight up selection)? I'd bet LTE gets you at least 10% more battery life.

 

[ekuLoN]

Someone like you shouldn’t even be in this thread, you don’t even need a phone that doubles as a computing device and internet access point. 1 hour of screen time all you need is a burner flip phone.

A smart phone is for...personal and business use.

Who are you to decide who will be in this thread or not.

 

[ray6088]

It's better than 6s/7/8/SE2, worse than XR/11. I got full charged at 5pm and now 3pm I still have 43% left. Off course I disable all the background refresh as well as email refresh, GPS off, 5G auto with low data mode. BTW, mini always showed 5G icon whenever I left my office wifi range. I'm almost all time 5G connected in town.

 

[Rainman2018]

Who are you to decide who will be in this thread or not.

broooo people looking for smoke in a macrumors thread? lmao Honestly the 12 mini as a weekend phone if I were ever rich enough would be the dream.