Meanwhile, Samsung Edge battery life is in the single digit hours. That’s the difference between designing a phone from the ground up to be thin, and throwing tech together into a thin case.
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iPhone 17 Battery Life Comparison: 6+ Hour Improvement Over iPhone 16
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I honestly don’t get the obsession with iPhone battery life. Do people really need their phone glued to their hand 24/7? You can plug it in for twenty minutes and get half a charge back, it’s not that deep. The new Air is going to sell like crazy anyway. Sure, it’s only packing a 3000mAh battery, but you’re trading that for a thinner, lighter phone that doesn’t feel like a brick in your pocket. Personally, I’ll take that trade any day.
Good battery life is like insurance: you may not need it all the time, but extremely important when you do.
Having a good battery just means you can go about your day and use your phone without needing to worry about when or where you can plug in your phone or remember to bring a battery pack.
I work at a desk all day in an open plan office, so I use my phone to play music pretty regularly. With an ageing battery my phone sometimes is at 20-30% by the time I board my train home and I have, on occasion, run out of battery while commuting. I'm at a stage where I have to plug in my phone during the day to have enough battery, particularly if I do stuff after work. It's not the end of the world, but it's something I have to actively remember. Sometimes I forget or I'm away from my desk constantly in meetings. I do have a power bank, but you know it needs charging itself and doesn't always make its way back into my bag.
None of this was an issue when I got the phone because it would just last through the day, which honestly made the phone better to use. So yes, good battery life is important, both for immediate peace of mind as well as longevity. For a mobile device I think it's one of the most important factors.
I get what you’re saying, but if you’re working at a desk all day, isn’t that the easiest place to keep your phone charged? You’re literally sitting next to an outlet or a USB port for hours. Even if you’re in meetings, you come back to your desk eventually. A quick 20–30 min top-up a couple of times during the day would easily cover the train ride home and anything you do after work.
The whole point of a phone is mobility, sure, but the idea that you have to go the entire day without ever plugging it in seems like more of a preference than a necessity. If the Air is thinner and lighter but just needs a quick boost here and there, that trade-off makes sense for a lot of people.
I'm a fairly light user but I like good (which for me is multi-day) battery life for when I'm travelling.
With a phone, an iPad, an Apple Watch and earbuds (and I sometimes travel with 2 sets of those) it can be a lot to charge especially if one doesn't want to have to pack anything more than a compact universal (so not super fast charging) 2-port charger and a couple of cables. Not needing to charge my iPhone every day (in fact I get away with every third day) means that I don't end up having to juggle getting 4 or even 5 devices recharged every day via 2 charging points. I still have to juggle a bit, keeping the iPad charged is the biggest pain, but given that one of my earbuds has a charging case that is another not-every-day device in terms of charging so that makes life simpler as well.
It's also nice for a long-haul trip to know with a fair degree of confidence that if I charge my phone fully at home before setting off I can easily get all the way to my hotel at the other end, maybe a 24 hour journey or more with travel to/from the airport and waiting times possibly including a connection, without having to worry about rummaging around in a case at any point in my trip to find a cable and maybe a charger as well and then working out where the nearest AC outlet or USB port is.
With a phone, an iPad, an Apple Watch and earbuds (and I sometimes travel with 2 sets of those) it can be a lot to charge especially if one doesn't want to have to pack anything more than a compact universal (so not super fast charging) 2-port charger and a couple of cables. Not needing to charge my iPhone every day (in fact I get away with every third day) means that I don't end up having to juggle getting 4 or even 5 devices recharged every day via 2 charging points. I still have to juggle a bit, keeping the iPad charged is the biggest pain, but given that one of my earbuds has a charging case that is another not-every-day device in terms of charging so that makes life simpler as well.
It's also nice for a long-haul trip to know with a fair degree of confidence that if I charge my phone fully at home before setting off I can easily get all the way to my hotel at the other end, maybe a 24 hour journey or more with travel to/from the airport and waiting times possibly including a connection, without having to worry about rummaging around in a case at any point in my trip to find a cable and maybe a charger as well and then working out where the nearest AC outlet or USB port is.
I can think of a few things:
- They may have changed the fab process parameters to prioritize power instead of max frequency. (targeting higher max frequency usually means higher leakage, which affects power at all frequencies)
- Better clock gating in the SoC for turning off blocks that aren't in use
- better CPU caching reducing hits to DDR memory
- improved pad design on the SoC
- lower power memory
- spent a little more money on better DC/DC converters
- other non-SoC improvements like the display or backlight
Why would you do that? I'd be interested in how my older phone compares to the newer phone based on how i'd run it today, and that would be up to date with the latest version of software.
I think the advertised battery should include cellular data use length too since I never turn cell data off
The iPhone 17 models have much longer battery life than the iPhone 16 models, with the exception of the iPhone Air because there's no comparable iPhone 16 model. Battery life is up six hours for most devices, with the iPhone 17 seeing the most significant increase.
Streaming video can be played for longer, and the iPhone 17 models support longer video performance, according to year-over-year comparisons of iPhone 16 battery life and iPhone 17 battery life listings provided by Apple.
- iPhone 17 - 30 hours video playback, 27 hours streaming video playback.
- iPhone Air - 27 hours video playback, 22 hours streaming video playback.
- iPhone 17 Pro - 33 hours video playback, 30 hours streaming video playback.
- iPhone 17 Pro Max - 39 hours video playback, 35 hours streaming video playback.
- iPhone 16 - 22 hours video playback, 18 hours streaming video, 80 hours audio.
- iPhone 16 Plus - 27 hours video playback, 24 hours streaming video.
- iPhone 16 Pro - 27 hours video playback, 22 hours streaming video.
- iPhone 16 Pro Max - 33 hours video playback, 29 hours streaming video.
The iPhone 17 lasts for an impressive eight hours longer than the iPhone 16 for video playback, and nine hours longer for streaming video.
Battery life will vary depending on device usage, which is why Apple uses "up to" in all of its battery descriptions. You may see longer or shorter battery life based on how you use your iPhone, because most people aren't often watching video for 39 hours in a row.
The iPhone 17 models support fast charging and can reach a 50 percent charge in 30 minutes, much like the iPhone 16 models.
Article Link: iPhone 17 Battery Life Comparison: 6+ Hour Improvement Over iPhone 16
Well like I said, it's usually fine but you get the odd day where you forget or just don't get round to it.
Plus there's weekends and trips and holidays etc where you are out and about without easy access to a charger. Of course you can bring a power bank, but that just means one more thing to carry around.
Yeah, from the “upgrading to the Air on iOS 26 vs updating my 16 Pro to iOS 26” perspective, that comparison makes sense.
It’s just that I don’t see the relevance when the device is updated enough. If the device has been severely updated and therefore has seen its battery life severely reduced, you’re comparing how garbage the new iOS version is, not how much better the newer iPhones are.
I don’t update so I have direct comparisons: 6s on iOS 9 vs iPhone 7+ on iOS 10 vs iPhone Xʀ on iOS 12 vs iPhone 16 Plus on iOS 18.
Apple’s specs match this: Apple specs are on original iOS versions.
It's seriously impressive how much more they squeezed out without a die shrink. I'd love to wait for the iphone 18 for 2nm or below but my 13 mini is on its last legs and don't want to spend $90 on a battery upgrade.
Since my iPhone 16 Pro doesn't reach the end of the day, I don't believe any of these numbers. It wasn't better than on my iPhone 11 Pro. Gaslighting.
It’s not that big of a deal, it’s more a gauge of perceived improvements. I test all my devices and send them back if I don’t like them or not up to par with my use. Most consumers don’t even know their usage patterns, and they just buy to use.
Long battery life is really useful for backpacking where you need heavy GPS usage for 4-5 days on end with no recharge.