Despite disappointing iPhone 15 Pro Max battery capacity rumor, all is not lost. Here's why!

Back in July, a person who claimed to work at contract manufacturer Foxconn leaked what he said were the battery capacity figures for the iPhone 15 line. The numbers were astounding with the iPhone 15 expected to see its battery jump 18% from the iPhone 14 to 3877mAh. The iPhone 15 Plus would be the model with the largest battery at 4922mAh after a 14% increase from the iPhone 14 Plus' battery. 

The iPhone 15 Pro was tipped to have a 3650mAh battery, up 14% from the cell found in the iPhone 14 Pro, and the iPhone 15 Pro Max will sport a 4852mAh battery which would be a 12% hike from the iPhone 14 Pro Max's battery. Those numbers sounded amazing and led many consumers to start going through their couches for change to use to buy a new iPhone 15 handset.

But another tipster has posted what he says will be the actual battery capacity for the iPhone 15 Pro Max and it is extremely disappointing compared to the info leaked by the alleged Foxconn employee. Majin Bu (no, not the actual Dragon Ball Z villain) posted on X (via Wccftech) that the iPhone 15 Pro Max will sport a battery with a capacity of 4422mAh. That would be a puny 2.3% increase over the 4323mAh capacity of the battery on the iPhone 14 Pro Max. Remember, the alleged Foxconn tipster said that the iPhone 15 Pro Max will sport a 4852mAh battery following a 12% increase.

The new iPhone 15 Pro Max should have a 4422mAh battery. Despite this small increase compared to the previous series, it should still be more efficient pic.twitter.com/FBzQzo5be3

— Majin Bu (@MajinBuOfficial) August 31, 2023

One of the reasons why we could see such a small hike in battery capacity for the upcoming top-of-the-line iPhone is because the iPhone 15 Pro Max will be the first iOS handset to sport a periscope lens. Space that might be used for a larger battery increase needs to be used for the photography feature. The periscope lens folds inside the phone's body and uses prisms to bounce light from the lens opening to the image sensor. The result is an increase in the camera's focal length beyond what could be expected due to the size limitations of a smartphone. 

With the periscope lens, the iPhone 15 Pro Max should see an increase from 3x optical zoom on the iPhone 14 Pro Max to 6x optical zoom on the upcoming model.

Even with the disappointing hike in battery capacity for the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Majin Bu says to expect longer battery life for the device thanks to the 3nm process node being used to produce the A17 Bionic chipset being used to power the device. The smaller the process node, the smaller a chip's feature size is. This results in smaller transistors allowing more to fit inside the cozy confines of a chip. The more transistors inside a chip, the more powerful and energy-efficient it becomes.

For example, the 7nm A13 Bionic in 2019's iPhone 11 line carried 8.5 billion transistors each rising 38.8% to 11.8 billion transistors found inside each A14 Bionic SoC. The A14 Bionic, made fir the 2020 iPhone 12, was the first A-series chip made using a 5nm process node. The iPhone 13 line was powered by 2021's A15 Bionic which carried 15 billion transistors for a 27.1% gain over the A14's transistor count.

Last year, the 4nm A16 Bionic was used to power the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. This chip was said to carry nearly 16 billion transistors each. And that brng us tot he A17-Bionic which will be found inside the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. The only smartphone application processor to be made this year using the 3nm process node, we could see an increase in the chip's transistor count to18 billion-20 billion.