Battery time is perhaps the most underrated upgrade to the iPhone 16 series. This is especially true for the top-of-the-line iPhone 16 Pro Max.
Apple claims that this is the iPhone with the longest battery life ever, but we had to put those claims to the test, and now, after several days of intensive testing, we have the results of PhoneArena's battery test.
< p>Each phone we review goes through three separate battery tests, in each of which we measure the time it takes for the phone to fully discharge in a specific usage scenario:
- 1. Web surfing test – cycle through a set of web pages with built-in scrolling behavior
- 2. YouTube video streaming test – run the same YouTube playlist on all phones
- 3. 3D Game Test – Run a 3D game at the same settings on all phones until they run out of power
To see how well the iPhone 16 Pro Max performs, we compare it to the iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro Max and, of course, with the biggest rivals on Android, including the Galaxy S24 Ultra, S24 Plus, Pixel 9 Pro XL and OnePlus 12.
Interestingly, despite the noticeable increase in battery size, the battery capacity of the iPhone 16 Pro Max is still not as large as that of Android phones. Here are the battery sizes for all the phones in this comparison:
- iPhone 16 Pro Max – 4685 mAh
- iPhone 16 Plus – 4674 mAh
- iPhone 15 Pro Max – 4441 mAh
- Galaxy S24 Ultra – 5000 mAh
- Galaxy S24 Plus – 4900 mAh
- Google Pixel 9 Pro XL – 5060 mAh
< li>OnePlus 12 – 5400 mAh
And here are the test results:
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000This is the lightest of our three tests, showing how the iPhone 16 Pro Max is a big improvement over its predecessor, but it also blows away the competition on Android.
Compared to last year's 15 Pro Max, the new iPhone lasts almost three hours longer, which is a very good improvement.
The OnePlus 12 dominates the YouTube video streaming test, but the iPhone 16 Pro Max and iPhone 16 Plus are the closest followers with pretty solid results.
Galaxy phones tend to struggle with YouTube videos and drain faster than others, and we still don't know why, but it's a consistent trend we've seen over the years. Optimizing this aspect of their performance would be a welcome improvement indeed.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra managed to win the gaming benchmark as it seems to be the most efficient when it comes to GPU usage.
However, iPhone 16 Pro Max takes second place again.
Big autonomy test: watch the video
Summary and Overall Battery Life Score
Overall, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is one of the biggest battery upgrades in recent memory years, and while we're still waiting for Apple Intelligence, the longer battery life may be the biggest reason to convince some users to buy the new model.
And here's our final battery usage score for all the phones in this comparison:
