Battery test has iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro falling behind iPhone 11 Pro

Iphone 12 Magsafe
Iphone 12 Magsafe (Image credit: Apple)

What you need to know

  • Apple's iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro are now available to buy.
  • But battery tests show that the older iPhones might be a better bet in terms of longevity.
  • Tests show iPhone 11 Pro outlasting both new models.

Now that everyone has their new iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro in their hands we're starting to learn more and more about the new hotness. It isn't all good news, though, with a new battery test showing that the outgoing iPhone 11 Pro might be a batter champ when compared with the new releases.

YouTuber Arun Maini posted a video that put seven iPhones through their paces to see how their batteries fared. All devices were set to the same screen brightness while there were no SIM cards installed. So how did things turn out?

Watch and see.

Full Battery Life Drain Test of every iPhone Apple sells - iPhone 12 Pro vs iPhone 12 vs iPhone 11 Pro Max vs iPhone 11 Pro vs iPhone 11 vs iPhone XR vs iPhone SE.

For those who don't want to wait, MacRumors laid the numbers out for us.

  • iPhone 11 Pro Max: 8 hours and 29 minutes
  • iPhone 11 Pro: 7 hours and 36 minutes
  • iPhone 12: 6 hours and 41 minutes
  • iPhone 12 Pro: 6 hours and 35 minutes
  • iPhone 11: 5 hours and 8 minutes
  • iPhone XR: 4 hours and 31 minutes
  • iPhone SE (2020): 3 hours and 59 minutes

We'll have to wait a few weeks before we see how iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max fare.

Whether this is a surprise depends on how you look at things. We already know that the new iPhones have smaller batteries than the old ones, so that's something to consider. There's no telling what the newly set up iPhones are doing in the background, either. Anything and everything will impact performance and battery life on a brand new device.

Ultimately we'll get a better feel for how these new iPhones perform when more people are using them. And considering most people have only owned theirs for a few hours at this point its probably a little bit early to be panicking just yet.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.