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iPhone 16e's Battery Capacity Revealed in Real-World Battery Life Test
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Cool, but how is the performance of the modem in comparison to the iPhone 16 Pro Max and the Samsung S25 (which uses the latest Qualcomm modem as the iPhone 16 Pro Max uses an older one).
He did also test cellular, watch the video.
If my math is correct, this would mean 10% improved battery life for the Netflix test, even after normalizing for battery capacity (and otherwise a 22% improvement).
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I know people will trash it for having about the same efficiency after considering the increased battery size, but that's still impressive.
"About the same" is significantly better than what Samsung and Mediatek have achieved with their modem division and this is Apple's first generation. Obviously a lot of the stack isn't fully new as they bought Intel's cellular division, but those were bad to mediocre at best, it's a huge step forward.
We will see additional efficiency benefits once they integrate the modem into the SoC, both from then using the newest process node and from less power wasted on interconnects.
"About the same" is significantly better than what Samsung and Mediatek have achieved with their modem division and this is Apple's first generation. Obviously a lot of the stack isn't fully new as they bought Intel's cellular division, but those were bad to mediocre at best, it's a huge step forward.
We will see additional efficiency benefits once they integrate the modem into the SoC, both from then using the newest process node and from less power wasted on interconnects.
So, the 16e has the biggest battery of all the 6.1" devices and it lasts the longest... Wow, who'd have thought that?
That's normal behaviour for a brand-new battery, though. As the battery starts to age a bit it will spend less time at 100% after a full charge.
To be a valid comparison, all three phones would need to have brand new batteries.
Not quite, because battery life claims by Apple increased by about 10% for iPhone 15 to iPhone 16. The capacity increased by 6.7%. There are confounding factors like moving from A16 to A18.
For iPhone 16e, the confounding factors are 4-core GPU and lack of mmW.
In short, any efficiency gains from C1 are too small to matter. They probably exist though but irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
“Statistics is the art of lying by means of figures.” —Wilhelm Stekel
To me that only means the battery indicator is as deceptive as always and doesn’t say anything useful about anything else. Or is he expecting a 1% per hour battery life?
Indeed. You certainly can't use Amp-hours to compare car batteries, because different models can use different battery chemistries and different cell configurations which results in batteries with different voltages. NMC chemistry operates at a different voltage to LFP, for example. So Wh (or kWh) is the only correct and consistent way to compare battery capacity.
No, what it indicates is that a brand-new factory fresh battery can actually have more capacity than its rated capacity. So it's effectively charging to perhaps 105% or 110% of its rated capacity. After a few cycles it's going to be closer to its actual rated capacity. And then eventually degrade to below it.
So continuously reloading the Reddit website is considered the real-world for some folk? 
CNET:
"The iPhone 16E can definitely make it through a day on a single charge and, depending on how you use it, it'll likely make it through a day and a half before needing to be plugged in."
Article Link: iPhone 16e's Battery Capacity Revealed in Real-World Battery Life Test
That's not new, is it? My iPhone 13 mini can make it through the whole day with one charge as well.
My day starts early. I take the iPhone from the charging pad at around 05.35 in the morning before I go to work. By the evening the battery is down to 20-30%.
Notes:
Average display-on time is 2 hours, 30 minutes display-off time.
I do not have any of the popular social media apps installed, don't need these battery burners.
Yes we do, the article mentions a different test from a different tester, but as I said it’s almost hidden in the article:
The website said its test "runs a script that simulates normal web surfing over cellular until the battery's depleted."
You’re doing the math for the wrong test. The Reddit runtime test is not using C1, it’s using WiFi. You should do the same calculations for the second test from Tom’s Guide.
The battery life and price on the 16E are genuinely its USP. Many people will buy this phone just for its longer batter life over other 6.1” phones (and probably the 16 Pro aswell).
In its announcement video for the iPhone 16e, Apple said the device features a new internal design that allowed for a larger battery.
Apple does not publicly advertise mAh battery capacities for iPhones. In his iPhone 16e review video today, however, Dave Lee of the YouTube channel Dave2D said the device is equipped with a 3,961 mAh battery. That is more than a 10% increase in battery capacity compared to the regular iPhone 16 model's 3,561 mAh battery.
- iPhone 16 Pro Max: 4,685 mAh
- iPhone 16 Pro: 3,582 mAh
- iPhone 16 Plus: 4,674 mAh
- iPhone 16: 3,561 mAh
- iPhone 16e: 3,961 mAh
Apple says the iPhone 16e offers the longest battery life of any 6.1-inch iPhone ever, in part due to Apple's new power-efficient C1 modem.
How is the iPhone 16e's real-world battery life?
Lee evaluated the iPhone 16e's battery life with a test that continuously loads the Reddit website over Wi-Fi, and he found that the device achieved 12 hours and 54 minutes of battery life for this purpose. In the same test, the regular iPhone 16 lasted 11 hours and 17 minutes, so the iPhone 16e was the clear winner in this particular test.
iPhone 16e battery life test by Dave2D
Tom's Guide also tested the iPhone 16e's battery life in a different way, and the device achieved similar results as the regular iPhone 16:The website said its test "runs a script that simulates normal web surfing over cellular until the battery's depleted."
More on the iPhone 16e's battery life from CNET's Patrick Holland:Here is Lee's review:
Apple is currently accepting iPhone 16e pre-orders, and the device launches on Friday. Read our iPhone 16e review roundup to learn more.
Article Link: iPhone 16e's Battery Capacity Revealed in Real-World Battery Life Test
Lee is completely right 👍🏼
Just like I predicted. MacRumors made like 5 different articles reporting that the battery life increase was due to the C1 without knowing if the battery capacity increased. And it did.
I learned about this mAh vs. Wh thing several years ago — it's a common thing pointed out on the internet.
I'm not sure what the argument is here, though. The sentence I wrote in the article was merely a fact, that Apple doesn't share mAh figures.
For whatever reason — perhaps because iPhone battery voltage typically remains constant — many people are really interested in learning the mAh figures.
So I shared the 3,961 mAh figure, as new information.
That's it.
Nevertheless, I'm always willing to add more detail to my articles where possible, so I added "provided that the iPhone 16e's battery voltage remains the typical 3.85V." I don't feel that it's an entirely necessary statement until iPhone battery voltage is proven to have finally changed, but it doesn't hurt to add.