Report says iPhone 16 Pro Max will have the best battery life found on any iPhone

A decade ago, the iPhone was not known for having a large battery. Samsung took advantage of this by releasing a commercial that called iPhone users "Wall Huggers." In this iconic ad, iPhone users are inside an airport looking for an outlet to plug their handsets into. Many of them are sitting on the floor, back against the wall, plugged into an outlet, and charging their iPhones. The outlets by the bathroom sink are taken by iPhone users and those using the outlets by the base of the water fountain have to be careful not to get "rear-ended" by a water drinker.

Meanwhile, in the commercial, Samsung shows off two different features it had back in the day. One was Ultra Power Saving Mode which reduced access to a small number of apps. We see two women who seemingly just landed at the airport. One, holding an iPhone, says, "I gotta plug in" as she looks around for an open outlet. Her friend, clutching the Galaxy S5, looks at her screen which shows her with one day left of battery life with the Ultra Power Saving Mode enabled.

The other feature that Samsung offered at the time was the use of a replaceable battery This is something that might return in the not too distant future. Imagine how much more confident you might be if you carried several pre-charged battery packs with you. Even if they weren't hot-swappable (able to replace the current battery without shutting down the device), many of you might find it more convenient.

We've gone a bit off track here. According to leaker "yeux1122," who posted in a Naver blog, (via Wccftech), the battery life of the upcoming iPhone 16 Pro Max could be the best in iPhone history thanks to the combination of a larger sized battery and components that are not as power-hungry such as the 3nm A18 Pro application processor made using TSMC's second-gen 3nm node (N3E).

The latest rumor has three of the four iPhone 16 series handsets getting a jump in battery capacity; the one model staying the same is the iPhone 16 Plus which will keep the 4383mAh capacity seen on the iPhone 15 Plus. The iPhone 16 Pro Max will not only benefit from a larger capacity cell, but it also will take advantage of internal components that don't need to sip on battery juice so often. In a follow-up post on Naver, "yeux1122" wrote that the iPhone 16 Pro Max could have the best battery life on any major smartphone.

In our battery test recorded back in November which pitted several 2023 flagship models against each other, the iPhone 15 Pro Max had the best results for browsing as the device lasted for 19 hours and 20 minutes. The iPhone 15 Plus was fourth with a time of 16 hours and 21 minutes.

The test measuring video playback time had much different results as the iPhone 15 Plus was on top running 11 hours and 14 minutes before the battery died. With a score of 10 hours and 32 minutes, the Pixel 8 Pro was second with the iPhone 15 Pro Max (9 hours and 45 minutes) in third. Running 8 hours and 54 minutes before the battery passed away, the Galaxy S23 Ultra finished fourth.

This week, we released another battery test which included two Galaxy S24 series units along with the OnePlus 12 and the ROG Phone 8 Pro. The new leader for the browser test was, surprisingly, the Galaxy S24+ at 20 hours and 41 minutes. With its larger 4755mAh capacity, the handset just barely beat out the Galaxy S24 Ultra (20 hours, 6 minutes). The two Samsung 2024 flagship models beat out the third place iPhone 15 Pro Max (19 hours, 20 minutes), and the fourth place Galaxy S23 Ultra (18 hours, 57 minutes).

The battery longevity award for streaming YouTube went to the OnePlus 12 with a score of 13 hours and 37 minutes according to our proprietary test. The ROG Phone 8 Pro was next with a score of 13 hours and 29 minutes. The Pixel 8 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max were third and fourth with scores of 10 hours and 23 minutes, and nine hours and 45 minutes respectively.

Last year, a rumored huge hike in the size of the iPhone 15 Pro Max battery did not surface which was a bit disappointing although the capacity did increase by 2.7%. Still, we've learned to take any rumors about massive battery increases with a grain of salt.