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iPhone SE (2016) Is 90% battery health still good?
- Thread starter wenopalis
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It’s a bit more complicated. Question is, does your current battery still give you the hours you require/are happy with, considering your usage? My wife’s 1st gen SE was down to 86% and still went for at least half a day. Her 12 mini is now at 90% and still goes almost the whole day, depending on how many games she plays. In my case, it depends how much time I spend on these forums….
I’ve just bought a 20 000mAh power bank, weighs in at 340 grams, for €40. I’ll be using it mostly with my 12 mini, but it will also allow me to use my 1st gen SE again. I can’t be bothered to replace that battery. Replacing an iPhone battery is maybe more trouble than it’s worth.
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10% is realistically closer to 40%. The Apple measurement is highly inaccurate and becomes more inaccurate the more depleted your battery becomes. My old 6S had 82% battery health but had only 40 minutes of screen on time. When I replaced the battery, it was back up to 5.5 hours or more. The same is true with my iPhone 8 with 84% of battery life… it doesn’t last for an hour before going completely flat.
90% is decent and you shouldn’t start noticing significant impacts to battery performance until you are closer to 85%. It is an estimate and the algorithm is likely designed to give a more optimistic view of your battery health than not. AppleCare+ covers battery replacements but Apple will not honor this policy until your battery health reaches 79% or lower. You can pay out of pocket if you need to but I wouldn’t recommend doing so at 90%.
Battery health % is not linear. 90% battery healthy does not mean you have 90% of your originally battery capacity left, especially as battery health also relates to how much sustained power the battery can output as well as the overall capacity remaining. This is why batteries under 80% are usually deemed to be end-of-life and in need of replacement (and why a battery with 90% health might also need replacing, because it’s just a very wishy-washy guess).
The very best way to know whether you need a new battery is to make that judgement yourself instead of relying on a reported number. If the battery doesn’t last as long as you’d like/need it to, and/or the device is switching off randomly before the battery % gets to 0%, then get a new battery.
The very best way to know whether you need a new battery is to make that judgement yourself instead of relying on a reported number. If the battery doesn’t last as long as you’d like/need it to, and/or the device is switching off randomly before the battery % gets to 0%, then get a new battery.
Unpopular opinion: I think 90% is the starting point of a trash battery. Not quite fully garbage but it's getting there!
Once it hits 90% and dips lower, it becomes a can of worms because you could have a battery with 88% but acts like it has 65% capacity.
I got a warning to change my battery due to significant degradation in the settings, with 86% once.
So in a way, everyone that has said to just ignore the battery health % was right at the end of the day. Either you use it or you lose it.
Once it hits 90% and dips lower, it becomes a can of worms because you could have a battery with 88% but acts like it has 65% capacity.
I got a warning to change my battery due to significant degradation in the settings, with 86% once.
So in a way, everyone that has said to just ignore the battery health % was right at the end of the day. Either you use it or you lose it.
Even more of an unpopular opinion: battery health is irrelevant, the only thing that matters is the iOS version:
I have an iPhone 6s on iOS 10 with 63% health (63%, not a typo), and battery life is like-new. An iPhone 6s on iOS 15 with a new battery dreams of the battery life my 63% health iPhone 6s gets.
My 9.7-inch iPad Pro has seen no battery life degradation in the four years since Apple forced it out of iOS 9, regardless of battery health. It has been on iOS 12 throughout these past four years.
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Yep, my 2010 iPod touch on iOS 6 and with the original battery still plays music for hours on end.
My Nokia with original battery from 2005 still stands by for a week.
Honestly, I think we are demanding too much from these modern devices.
People overestimate age a lot, and severely underestimate the energy impact iOS has on a device after its updated a few times.
32-bit devices (even if updated!) are a lot better with older batteries than newer, updated devices. iOS’ energy consumption has skyrocketed on updated devices ever since it went 64-bit. iPad 2 users, iPhone 5c users, they all report usable devices even 10 years in. Meanwhile, you have 1st-gen iPad Pros, 1st-gen iPhone SEs, and a lot more being obliterated just a few years in. iOS updates demand too much from these devices, and sadly I don’t see this reality changing. Couple to that what you said: people are doing more and heavier tasks, and the device can’t cope.
If battery health were so relevant, no iPad 2, 3, 4 would work today. My 9-year-old iPhone 5c would be gone. You see people replacing batteries after two years! Two! It’s absurd really. The fact that older devices work, and the fact that non-updated devices work perfectly many years in, shows that there is only one culprit: iOS.
Maybe it goes without saying, but even today I’m still doing the same things with my Nokia and iPod that I did when I first got them; making phone calls and playing music. That’s it.
What apps are you using? Drainage seems to be quite extreme.
Did you ever try to optimize your settings to save battery? I’d be happy to provide some suggestions if that would help you.
Tapatalk is an absolute monster, it’s worse than Pacman. My phone gets hot while using it, 1 year old 12 mini. Tapatalk closed, whole day battery.
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I’ve used my iPhone Xʀ on iOS 12 pretty heavily and battery life is still flawless today. Even with moderate tasks it should be able to provide good battery life years on end, and it doesn’t currently.