iPhone 17 Ultimate Battery Test!

Mrwhosetheboss

iPhone 17 Pro Max vs iPhone 17 pro / Air / 17 / 16 Pro Max / 16 vs Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra Battery and charging test!  ESR Qi2.2 Chargers: https://bit.ly/3KbkQfB ESR CryoBoost® 3-in-1 MagSafe Charging Station (Qi2.2 25W):   https://bit.ly/4pwxNAU ESR OmniLock Magnetic Car Charger (Qi2.2 25W):https://bit.ly/3VV7BlJ It features exclusive CryoBoost® active cooling technology and Qi2 25W for the perfect balance of speed and convenience. The minimalist design looks great on desks or nightstands (with a handy Sleep Mode) and comes with a detachable MFW-certified Apple Watch charger - keeping your setup sleek and clutter-free.

Transcript

00:00These are the iPhone 17s and this should be one of the most interesting years for battery life

00:04ever. Because on one hand you've got this new iPhone Air which is so thin it looks like it's

00:08going to last about 12 minutes. But then on the other hand you've got the 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max

00:13which Apple say offer an enormous leap in battery life. So let's find out how each of the new phones

00:18compare against each other. So that's the iPhone 17 Pro Max, the 17 Pro, the Air and then the base

00:2317. How they compare to last year for which we've got the top end 16 Pro Max and then the base 16.

00:28And then finally how they compare to Samsung with their flagship S25 Ultra. We'll make this as close

00:33as possible to how I would actually use my phone in a real day. So let's start off by following along

00:38to a workout from my favorite gym YouTuber. And there's a pretty clear phone that I'm rooting for.

00:43This one, the base iPhone 17. Because this guy has already inherited just about every previously pro

00:50iPhone feature you could want. So if it also has pro battery life then I mean that's it. Almost no one

00:56ever needs to spend more to buy a pro again. Okay that's our gym session done. It's actually been a full hour

01:02since we unplugged the phones. So there is absolutely no way that the 17 Pro Max and the 16 Pro Max over here

01:08are not lying to me right now with this 100% remaining figure. Get out of here. But it's definitely

01:14too early to draw any kind of conclusions. So let's jump over to Slack. This is what we use in our team

01:19to talk to each other. I'm going to ask everyone to compliment or roast the iPhone 17 phones.

01:25Your choice. And while we wait to see if a single person decides to compliment, we should talk about

01:30the elephant in the room with this generation. The iPhone 17 Pro and the Pro Max are now different

01:35depending on which country you buy them in. So some countries like the US will sell the eSIM only

01:40versions and others will sell the physical SIM versions. Which we've had before. But the difference

01:44this time is that the eSIM versions actually have a larger battery capacity. About 5.5% bigger for the

01:50Pro Max and almost 7% on a normal size Pro. And to be fair, I think in concept, this is great. I totally

01:57get why Apple is so keen to axe physical SIMs. Like the only benefit of them is that they make it a bit

02:03easier to switch from one phone to the next for some people. But in a modern 2025 flagship phone where

02:10most other things are being optimized on like a nanometer level, it does feel pretty wasteful.

02:14to have this random large chunk of plastic which needs its own SIM tray and SIM reader and housing.

02:20And the difference in battery you're getting by removing this stuff, 5.5% and 7%. These are pretty

02:26enormous numbers. Like that's actually bigger than the average difference in battery capacity

02:30between generations of iPhone. Okay, that's probably enough of slack. It's getting a little weird in

02:36here. So let's flick over to some lunchtime Instagram doomscrolling. Now, one thing to pay

02:41attention to is if we look at current battery percentages, then, well, actually, A, the iPhone

02:47Air's battery is already starting to slide comfortably into the 80s. But also, B, there is, at least right

02:53now, almost zero difference between my iPhone 17 Pro Max and the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Which kind of brings

03:00me to the other side of this eSIM coin. But given that I'm in the UK, one of the countries that has

03:05physical SIMs and therefore smaller batteries, are these new phones even going to be an improvement?

03:11While it's great that Apple is increasing the size of the batteries for eSIM users, is that the only

03:15reason that they're able to say these new Pro iPhones have this enormous leave-in battery? Do you just

03:20not get one of the key selling points of the phone if you're buying in, well, most countries? That's what we need

03:26to get to the bottom of. Now, the other thing that's very surprising is that even though we're now closing

03:30in on three and a half hours into this test, the iPhone 17 isn't really outperforming the iPhone

03:3516 at all. Apple claimed an absolutely staggering 36% longer lifespan. So even though you kind of expect

03:43not to see the fully optimal figure in real life, it's very surprising that we're not seeing any

03:47improvement right now. Bear in mind, we've done a lot of things to control this test. Like, all phones

03:52are on their latest software. The room is set to a controlled 16 degrees C to be the average of

03:57indoor and outdoor temps with a fan blowing at them at all times, etc, etc. And so this should be a 100%

04:04apples to apples comparison. The only thing I can assume is that because Apple measures battery just

04:10using video playback time, which is like the thing that would benefit from the new ProMotion display on the

04:15iPhone 17, maybe that figure doesn't very well capture the varied, messy reality of using lots of different

04:21kinds of apps. So we are now approaching the five hour mark, which is actually kind of crazy in

04:26itself. Like when I first started doing these battery tests years ago, some phones were starting

04:30to die at this five hour point. And yet here we have the iPhone 17 Pro Max currently in first place

04:35with 73%, the 16 Pro Max still on 71, and then the Samsung very close behind with a sweet, sweet 69.

04:42So now after subjecting myself to an hour and a half on X, which is more than any sane man should have to

04:48do, let's unwind by opening some Pokemon booster packs. One thing I was quite concerned about,

04:53but that doesn't actually seem to be causing any issues here is iOS 26. When I was running the beta

04:57on my own phone, this software didn't just drain my battery, it waterboarded it. But I guess now

05:03we're in the final release, the optimizations have come through. And I got to give credit,

05:07considering that there are now like a bajillion lighting calculations occurring every time you do

05:12simple things like pull down your notification shade, it's pretty impressive that it's not completely

05:16killing the battery, potentially helped by the new adaptive power mode, which makes the software

05:22now much more aggressively cut down on background apps and processors. Now it's time to really cause

05:27some pain. We're going to open up the cameras, flip over to the front and record 4k video at 60 frames

05:32per second. And this is one of those tasks in which optimization is only going to help you so much.

05:36You can pretty quickly notice the iPhone Air starting to drown, which makes sense if you think about it,

05:42like this phone has a screen that's larger than the base iPhone, so that's going to need more power.

05:46A19 Pro chip, which again, will probably need more power than the A19 in the base phone when you're

05:51pushing it. It's got less power to give with a smaller sized battery all topped off with titanium

05:56sides that aren't going to get rid of heat nearly as well as the aluminium that you get on all three

06:01other new iPhones. And you know, the hotter the phone, the faster the battery depletes. And so it only

06:06takes until seven hours, 18 minutes for the air to die completely. That's a pretty early KO. And from this

06:13point, I'd say let's just fast forward this test till the end so we can get to the results. But I do just

06:17want to make clear that is a very different result to what Apple was claiming for the air. Apple said

06:22that this phone should have the same battery life as the iPhone 16 Pro. But that phone should last

06:27longer than the iPhone 16, which in itself is already leagues ahead of what the air has just done. So

06:32maybe the C1X modem that only the air gets may give it some power efficiency gains when you're on

06:38cellular. But how much difference can that make? This test makes me very doubtful that the air will

06:43actually give most people pro levels of battery. Oh, there's the iPhone 16. And then the iPhone 17. And

06:51after a large amount of time, the other phones do eventually follow suit. So 17 Pro goes on to the ESR

06:59Qi 2.2 wireless charger, our sponsor to see how fast it can juice back up when you're giving it its maximum 25 watts of

07:05power. And let's talk results. So squarely in seventh position is the iPhone air with seven hours 18. And I

07:13don't think that's terrible battery life. It's about the upper end of what I expected given how thin the

07:18thing is. It just really makes it tangible how much you are giving up to have a thin phone. And it pales

07:23in comparison to even sixth position, the iPhone 16, which managed to last a whole extra two and a half

07:29hours, which means the iPhone 17 is which puts the iPhone 17 in fifth position with 10 hours 28. And I'm

07:38glad to see that it is conclusively better than the 16s. But I got to say, I did also expect that gap to

07:44be larger. Fourth is the iPhone 17 Pro, which I can show you while it's on this charger. Again, pretty small

07:50step up from the 17. I mean, this has been true for every single generation in my experience. The battery life

07:54you get is not really about whether you go pro or not. It's really just what size of phone do you get

07:59because that leaves all of the big guys. So in third is the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra with a pretty

08:06monstrous 11 hours 58. Then the iPhone 16 Pro Max did even better. It wasn't a massive jump, but an extra

08:1315 minutes longer is still something, which leaves the iPhone 17 Pro Max top of the pile with 13 hours to

08:19the minute, which is on one hand very impressive. And it's good to see the benchmark constantly being

08:24pushed out. But at the same time, this does reinforce my suspicion that the whole enormous leap claim was

08:30referring to the eSIM only models, who in this test would have lasted approximately a whopping 13 hours 45.

08:37And that for anyone not getting those models, I'd revise the wording a little bit more to expected

08:42step. Okay, it's been 30 minutes and our iPhone is on 56%, which is super impressive because that's more than what

08:52Apple is saying their wireless charger can do. But yeah, I mean, anytime a friend asks me what wireless charger to buy,

08:58my answer has always been ESR because there's just nothing missing. It's three in one. So it charges your phone,

09:04your watch and your AirPods at the same time. It comes with the power brick and cable you need to get the max speeds for all of

09:10them. And it has cryo boost, which actively cools the phone at its main heat source, the logic board. It

09:16means your phone can stay charging at maximum speed the whole time, even if you're using it while it's

09:21charging. So link below to grab one.

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