iPhone 16 Pro Max 80% Charge Limit: One Year Later, Was It Worth It?

[BigMcGuire]

I've been a battery hobbyist for a long time. Before the days of the 80% charge limit, I used to leave my phone plugged into a charger all day because I worked at a desk (so it spent most of its life at 100% state of charge). I still had amazing (100%) health values after 2 years (average time I kept my phone).

I believe the biggest killer of batteries is heat.

Charge your phone wirelessly in the sun in your car? That's going to affect health more than anything.

My wife used a Belkin wireless charger for her 15 Pro Max. We didn't realize until we got our 17s that this wireless charger baked the phone so hot you could barely touch it. My 15 Pro Max was 99% after 2 years (I didn't use the wireless charger), her 15 Pro Max had barely 80% health. Up till the 15 Pro Max (we got identical phones), our battery health was almost identical despite my wife using 2-3x the cycles I do. When we got our 17 Pros, I put my phone on her wireless charger and my phone got an overheated warning despite it being indoors. My wife stopped using that wireless charger.

Heat is the killer.

Does 80% help? Yeah, a little bit. But not baking your phone in the sun and not charging with bad wireless chargers, etc... will do significantly more to help your battery health.

 

[MikB]

I suppose this doesn't affect people buying new iPhones from Apple stores, or other official resellers of new devices, but I got one iPhone 2nd hand from a big and reputable refurbished device fixer/reseller and it stayed on 100% for a couple of years while dying at 40% load, being at 10% when started up again, and then dying for the last time shortly thereafter. I came to the belief the battery was lying to iOS and paid for an Apple battery replacement last year. Zero issues since.

So when you look at battery health, ask yourself if there is actually an Apple battery in your device and if there are no reasons the battery was hacked to lie about its health.

I might still buy refurbished again, but not from that reseller. My iPhone is currently at 94% capacity after 226 cycles, so that's probably some years into the future anyway.

 

[N47H]

I've been a battery hobbyist for a long time. Before the days of the 80% charge limit, I used to leave my phone plugged into a charger all day because I worked at a desk (so it spent most of its life at 100% state of charge). I still had amazing (100%) health values after 2 years (average time I kept my phone).

I believe the biggest killer of batteries is heat.

Charge your phone wirelessly in the sun in your car? That's going to affect health more than anything.

My wife used a Belkin wireless charger for her 15 Pro Max. We didn't realize until we got our 17s that this wireless charger baked the phone so hot you could barely touch it. My 15 Pro Max was 99% after 2 years (I didn't use the wireless charger), her 15 Pro Max had barely 80% health. Up till the 15 Pro Max (we got identical phones), our battery health was almost identical despite my wife using 2-3x the cycles I do. When we got our 17 Pros, I put my phone on her wireless charger and my phone got an overheated warning despite it being indoors. My wife stopped using that wireless charger.

Heat is the killer.

Does 80% help? Yeah, a little bit. But not baking your phone in the sun and not charging with bad wireless chargers, etc... will do significantly more to help your battery health.

With you entirely until your final line “not charging with bad wireless chargers”… there’s no such thing as a good one, they all generate a lot of heat, even the ones with built in fans. Fast chargers also do the same thing.

Your best bet is just a slow wired charger.

 

[DeanCorp]

With you entirely until your final line “not charging with bad wireless chargers”… there’s no such thing as a good one, they all generate a lot of heat, even the ones with built in fans. Fast chargers also do the same thing.

Your best bet is just a slow wired charger.

Life’s too short to worry about battery percentage. I simply trade my old phone in every year. Looking forward to upgrading my 17 Pro Max to 18 Pro Max.

 

[throAU]

My 16 Pro max has been on 85% max charge for over a year…


I’m not too fussed about battery life, but given i charge it every night and generally was ending the day with 40% plus left at the end of the day, i figured i may as well reduce the max charge capacity and see how it goes.

This has been almost entirely 100% charged via wireless charging pad(s) both in my car and on my nightstand. Its extremely rare for me to plug it in.


And yes - heat kills batteries. I don’t game on this phone, so i’m probably giving it a pretty easy life compared to some.

The other thing that kills batteries is heavy load when heavily discharged. I barely ever let this get below 30% charge, so again - its had a very easy life.

I would have been fine with a regular Pro, but figured in for a penny in for a pound and that the max would give me significantly more life and easier time on the battery - so far looks to be the case.

 

[leifp]

I've been a battery hobbyist for a long time. Before the days of the 80% charge limit, I used to leave my phone plugged into a charger all day because I worked at a desk (so it spent most of its life at 100% state of charge). I still had amazing (100%) health values after 2 years (average time I kept my phone).

I believe the biggest killer of batteries is heat.

Charge your phone wirelessly in the sun in your car? That's going to affect health more than anything.

My wife used a Belkin wireless charger for her 15 Pro Max. We didn't realize until we got our 17s that this wireless charger baked the phone so hot you could barely touch it. My 15 Pro Max was 99% after 2 years (I didn't use the wireless charger), her 15 Pro Max had barely 80% health. Up till the 15 Pro Max (we got identical phones), our battery health was almost identical despite my wife using 2-3x the cycles I do. When we got our 17 Pros, I put my phone on her wireless charger and my phone got an overheated warning despite it being indoors. My wife stopped using that wireless charger.

Heat is the killer.

Does 80% help? Yeah, a little bit. But not baking your phone in the sun and not charging with bad wireless chargers, etc... will do significantly more to help your battery health.

That makes a ton of sense. Convenience is always loaded in costs. It may be too late for me (my 15Pro is at 86% with 433 cycles) but I’ll keep it in mind going forward. Perhaps Apple will realize that a phone on a charger pad overnight never needs rapid charging… hopefully a software fix is all that’s required but perhaps my older charging hardware needs to updated. I just hate waste…

 

[N47H]

Life’s too short to worry about battery percentage. I simply trade my old phone in every year. Looking forward to upgrading my 17 Pro Max to 18 Pro Max.

I stopped getting annual upgrades after the 6 Plus when yearly hardware updates stopped offering enough of a reason to do so, and the cost of the handsets started spiralling. I’m on a 16 Pro Max and I’ll be staying on it until the 20, unless the Fold can somehow solve all of the problems competitors have with those devices.

 

[DeanCorp]

I stopped getting annual upgrades after the 6 Plus when yearly hardware updates stopped offering enough of a reason to do so, and the cost of the handsets started spiralling. I’m on a 16 Pro Max and I’ll be staying on it until the 20, unless the Fold can somehow solve all of the problems competitors have with those devices.

I use my iPhone for 16 hours per day I absolutely cannot afford to not have the fastest performance and best performing battery which is why I upgrade. I certainly don’t upgrade to be cool, as the 17 PM is fugly vs the 16 PM

 

[N47H]

I use my iPhone for 16 hours per day I absolutely cannot afford to not have the fastest performance and best performing battery which is why I upgrade. I certainly don’t upgrade to be cool, as the 17 PM is fugly vs the 16 PM

16 hours a day? With an adult human being needing roughly 8 hours sleep a day that means you’re glued to it the moment you wake til the moment you go to sleep. You need to charge your phone less and give yourself some time away from the devices, get a partner, start a family. Or if you have one stop neglecting them for screen time. That’s far too much. If it’s a work requirement, then you need a new job! This isn’t criticism, it’s disbelief and pure sympathy!

 

[DeanCorp]

16 hours a day? With an adult human being needing roughly 8 hours sleep a day that means you’re glued to it the moment you wake til the moment you go to sleep. You need to charge your phone less and give yourself some time away from the devices, get a partner, start a family. Or if you have one stop neglecting them for screen time. That’s far too much. If it’s a work requirement, then you need a new job! This isn’t criticism, it’s disbelief and pure sympathy!

Sadly this is true. I run my own company I have a wife and two young kids (3 and 9 months old).

 

[0014]

16 Pro Max. Exclusively charged overnight to 90% with a 5w Apple Charger and Apple USB - USB C cable.

I wanted to see if faster charging affected the battery by charging with a slow charger overnight. Doesn’t seem to make a difference for my use.

I don’t use my phone a lot. Self employed electrician so don’t really have time. But I use it for navigation between jobs and listening to podcasts/radio whilst working. Usually via Bluetooth to my Sonos Roam or my meta glasses.

By the time I go to bed I’m usually on 20-25%. Sometimes it’s lower but mainly around the 20-25% mark.

I think the biggest killer of the battery is 5G. Charging doesn’t seem to have any real impact whether you slow or fast charge. My 14 PM was similar and I used to fast charge that.

 

[DeanCorp]

Surely this is some sort of record iPhone 17 Pro Max 97% already. Couldn’t work out why the battery was draining so fast.

I only recently enabled adaptive power mode and think that it also caused it to drop since enabling it.

 

[DeanCorp]

Surely this is some sort of record iPhone 17 Pro Max 97% already. Couldn’t work out why the battery was draining so fast.

I only recently enabled adaptive power mode and think that it also caused it to drop since enabling it. View attachment 2626590

View attachment 2626589

Something is not right here…

I went to try and find this thread to give everyone an update it’s a month later and look at battery health? I’m now not even able to get to 2PM without getting the 20% low battery warning

 

[OUsooner08]

Something is not right here…

I went to try and find this thread to give everyone an update it’s a month later and look at battery health? I’m now not even able to get to 2PM without getting the 20% low battery warning

It’s your apps and screen on time. I have 100+ more charging cycles than you on my 16 Pro Max and 93% battery health. I’m also running the iOS 27 developer beta and didn’t hit 20% until 9:15 pm last night.

 

[DeanCorp]

It’s your apps and screen on time. I have 100+ more charging cycles than you on my 16 Pro Max and 93% battery health. I’m also running the iOS 27 developer beta and didn’t hit 20% until 9:15 pm last night.

What can I do about it?

 

[OUsooner08]

What can I do about it?

Either deal with it or change your usage. You use Claude for over 3 hours, AI is incredibly demanding of resources, just based off your app usage in the screen shots nothing is wrong, you’re using your phone a lot with apps that use a lot of system resources.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Either deal with it or change your usage. You use Claude for over 3 hours, AI is incredibly demanding of resources, just based off your app usage in the screen shots nothing is wrong, you’re using your phone a lot with apps that use a lot of system resources.

Agreed. Doesn’t hurt to plug in while using these apps if you can too. Get a car charger for your drive to from work. Add a charger for work if you’re allowed. Etc.

 

[DeanCorp]

Either deal with it or change your usage. You use Claude for over 3 hours, AI is incredibly demanding of resources, just based off your app usage in the screen shots nothing is wrong, you’re using your phone a lot with apps that use a lot of system resources.

Thank you! That makes sense just was surprised to see the battery health degrade so fast. Do you think it would be worth getting a replacement battery from Apple to be back at 100% perhaps it would last the day again

 

[MacYellow]

I have an iPhone 13 with 89% battery I charge it every couplle of days

 

[FeliApple]

Thank you! That makes sense just was surprised to see the battery health degrade so fast. Do you think it would be worth getting a replacement battery from Apple to be back at 100% perhaps it would last the day again

Don’t replace it. Just wanted to say that it’s rather typical for battery health to collapse through the high 90s. Generally it drops to 99% and then drops quickly to 94-93-92. This has happened to practically every device of mine and of family members.


The battery life issue you’re having is due to your usage, not battery health.

 

[JM]

Batteries are still basically bags of goo, so yes.

Reading this thread and this made me laugh. I wish Jony Ive were still here to describe the iPhone battery as “Bags of goo”

 

[jflynn82]

From my experience, it has been definitely worth it. My wife has had her iPhone 15 for 2 years, and has not used charge limits. After 296 cycles she is at 93% capacity. I've been using my iPhone 16 Pro for 1 year, with an 85% charge limit set. I've only raised the charge limit a handful of days during the past year, and after the exact same number of cycles (296) I am at 99% capacity. I have also been diligent about not dropping below 20% charge.

I have now been using my 16 Pro for almost two years. At some point I switched from an 85% to 90% charge limit, to give myself a bit more cushion . . . and after 561 cycles, I'm still at 96% capacity. That seems pretty impressive compared to what others are reporting.

 

[unkl bob]

. . and after 561 cycles, I'm still at 96% capacity. That seems pretty impressive compared to what others are reporting.

[I have a 16PM (OCT 2024) and it spends most of it's life at 90% charge. I use the Apple MagSafe charger for almost all charging. Battery life at 100%; 205 cycles.]
So... It seems from this thread that 'cycle count' does not have a direct effect on 'Maximum Capacity' I upgraded from the 12PM for the 'C' port and the camera, but so far the 17 and predicted 18 models do not forecast me upgrading anytime soon. Can anyone out there give a solid point at which you went from 100% to 99%; was it cycles? overheating? Something you can put your finger on? A/O how much a new battery for the 16PM would cost to replace?
THX. ub

 

[nickelro]

[I have a 16PM (OCT 2024) and it spends most of it's life at 90% charge. I use the Apple MagSafe charger for almost all charging. Battery life at 100%; 205 cycles.]
So... It seems from this thread that 'cycle count' does not have a direct effect on 'Maximum Capacity' I upgraded from the 12PM for the 'C' port and the camera, but so far the 17 and predicted 18 models do not forecast me upgrading anytime soon. Can anyone out there give a solid point at which you went from 100% to 99%; was it cycles? overheating? Something you can put your finger on? A/O how much a new battery for the 16PM would cost to replace?
THX. ub

Only 205 cycles after 22 months is insane.
My 16 PM (also from October 2024) dropped to 99% battery health after 14 months and 281 cycles.
I'm currently at 95% with 447 cycles, so yours seems to be holding up exceptionally well.

 

[Obioban]

My 17PM is at 100% health at 207 cycles using the 80% charge limit (and almost never going below 20%). 99.9% magsafe charging (one of my bedside table for overnight charging, one in my cars for car charging, one at my desk at work for work charging). I basically only plug it in if I need to FAST charge for some reason... which has probably happened less than 10 times.

It spends a lot of it's life at 80%, between the overnight charging and work charging.