Following our last week’s preview into the new iPhone 13 series’ A15 chip, which impressed us tremendously due to its efficiency gains, we promised next to have a closer look at the new phone’s battery life and how the new display generation and screen efficiency ties in with the SoC efficiency and increased battery capacities this generation.

This year’s new iPhone 13 series have been extremely promising in terms of battery life as Apple has improved this aspect of the devices through a slew of different improvements. All the new phones feature new generation displays, most notably the new Pro models which have new variable refresh displays, along with increases in battery capacities. After a few arduous days of battery life testing, we can come to some very positive conclusions:

LTPO & New OLED Emitters?

Amongst the most notable new technology introductions on this year’s devices has been the addition of “Pro Motion” onto the new iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max models, essentially high refresh rate displays achieving up to 120Hz. Apple here is also joining the LTPO VRR club, meaning the new phones are introducing variable panel refresh rates, with Apple promising that the new displays vary between 10 and 120Hz in a set of available discrete refresh rates – similar to what we had seen on Samsung’s HOP displays in the Note20 Ultra last year, and the Galaxy S21 Ultra this year.

Beyond the VRR technology, this year’s phones are also getting new more fundamental panel technologies, such as new OLED emitters, allowing for either lower power consumption, or increased maximum peak brightness. To investigate this part more, we revisit our luminance power curves of the various devices to have a better view of what’s happening under the hood.

To avoid confounding display sizes into the mix, we’re limiting the comparison to Apple’s traditionally identical form-factors between generations, starting with the iPhone 11 Pro, followed by both iPhone 12 and 12 Pro generations, and the new iPhone 13 and 13 Pro.

Starting off with what may be somewhat surprising, is the fact that both the iPhone 12 and 13 series have the Pro models consume more power than their non-Pro counterparts. We had skipped this measurement in our review of last year’s phones so this came to a somewhat surprise to me. Measuring the data several times still getting the same results, and regression testing with other power data such as CPU power showed nearly identical figures between the phones, so it wasn’t a difference in methodology. As to why this happens, particularly on the 12 series, isn’t exactly clear to me. There were rumours that the 12 Pro was the first 10-bit display panel from Apple, and this would somehow make sense given the increased power draw over the 12 and 11 Pro models, however we’ve never been able to properly verify this.

On the iPhone 13 series, there’s a few complex behaviours to consider: First off, the iPhone 13 Pro and its LTPO panel noticeable decreases the minimum baseline power consumption of the phone by around a massive 100mW. This isn’t much of a surprise as it’s also what we had experienced on Samsung’s LFD displays – however with the difference that Apple seemingly doesn’t put any restrictions on its low refresh rate drive, so in that regard, Apple is definitely introducing a no-compromise 120Hz VRR implementation here. While 100mW doesn’t sound much, when using the phones at lower screen brightness, this can represent a large percentage of the overall device power consumption, and vastly increase battery life for the new iPhone 13 Pro models.

Secondly, for the regular iPhone 13 model, what I had expected was that Apple would essentially just inherit last year’s iPhone 12 Pro panel and put it into the non-Pro devices this year, as this is how Apple at least has advertised the new phones. However, looking at the power curves here, we see that they’re very different panel generations, with the new iPhone 13 showcasing a noticeable reduction in power that comes associated with a new generation, more efficient OLED emitter material. The jump here is extremely large and compares to the new emitter efficiency bump we’ve seen on the S21 Ultra this year.

Comparing the 13 to the 13 Pro, the phones have quite different curves – while the 13 Pro uses less power to display full white up until 140 nits, the regular 13 becomes more efficient afterwards. We’re also seeing different curve shapes, meaning the phones are driven differently in regards to their PWM and emitter voltages. Without more technical insight, I don’t have any proper explanation for the results, only able to say that they’re consistent.

One more thing to add is the fact that with this year’s Pro models, Apple is finally adding in a dedicated high brightness mode that only works under high ambient brightness. The 13 Pro, in manual brightness mode, will only go up to 853 nits. In auto-brightness mode in a dark environment, the screen will scale up to 625nits, while in a bright environment it offers the full staggering 1059 nits, fulfilling and exceeding the 1000 nit promise that Apple had advertised.

Bigger Batteries

Apple had mentioned the new iPhones lasted longer than their predecessors, but as always this was their own “internal usage metrics” runtime in hours. Physically, the new phones do come with larger batteries, and after the first teardowns, we can get some proper context as to their capacities:

Apple iPhone 12 vs 13 Battery Capacities
  mini "regular" Pro Pro Max
12 Series 2227 mAh 2815 mAh 2815 mAh 3687 mAh
13 Series 2406 mAh
(+8.0%)
3227 mAh
(+14.6%)
3095 mAh
(+9.9%)
4352 mAh
(+18.0%)

The differences here vary depending on the exact model – the 13 mini and 13 Pro gets the smallest increases at +8 and +10% respectively. The regular iPhone 13 sees a larger increase by +14.6%, while the Pro Max definitely sees the largest generational increase at +18% capacity. In terms of absolute capacities, although Apple has increased things by respectable amounts, comparatively speaking, the phones still feature quite minuscule batteries, especially when compared to the Android competition, where a small phone is expected to have at least 4000mAh, and large phones have seemingly standardised around 5000mAh. The new Pro models are also extremely heavy this year, both due to new cameras and the larger batteries – I don’t want to know how much more they would weigh if they had even larger batteries.

The Resulting Battery Life Results

Tying in the SoC efficiency, display efficiency, and larger batteries together, we fall back to our trusted battery life test to investigate the end results. The test consists of varied content of popular sites, with mixed APL, dynamic scrolling, and realistic timings between content loading and reading pauses in-between scrolls.

Web Browsing Battery Life 2016 (WiFi) 60Hz

Starting off with the 60Hz results, we can make proper generational comparisons to the iPhone 12 series. As a note, we unfortunately never reviewed the 12 mini or the 12 Pro Max due to the release date discrepancy, so those are missing from the results.

All the new phones showcase extremely large generational gains compared to their predecessors. For the iPhone 13, we’re getting results that are 34% better than the iPhone 12, which exceeds the +14.6% battery capacity increase. The new SoC efficiency as well as increased display power efficiency would explain the remainder of the difference.

The iPhone 13 Pro is tracking in at nearly identical runtime as the 13 – the 4.1% smaller battery of the Pro is slightly compensated by the more efficient display, however what these results show us is that under the same 60Hz refresh rate, the new LTPO screen of the Pro models don’t actually showcase that much of an efficiency advantage over the non-LTPO models – though both have generationally more efficient displays compared to their predecessors.

The iPhone 13 mini showcases adequate battery life at 10.7h, though it’s clearly below-average, though still keeping pace with devices that have massively larger batteries.

The iPhone 13 Pro Max breaks the charts here at 21.68 hours. We’re missing the 12 Pro Max, but it’s significantly longer than the 11 Pro Max, as well as the 6000mAh ASUS ROG Phone monsters, and also significantly ahead of the S21 Ultras which also have larger batteries.

Apple’s 120Hz refresh rate seems to work very similarly to Samsung’s LFD VRR, in that the display can vary itself between a few discrete refresh rates, ranging from 120Hz through 80, 60Hz, and a few other low frequency refresh rates down to 10Hz. The frequencies presented by Apple are similar to what Samsung exposes in its drivers, which wouldn’t be surprising if they’re both based on the same panel technology.

Apple’s practical implementation has some OS side differences though, one thing that I noted is that within browser content, although scrolling through the viewport happens at 120Hz, actual content animations seem to be limited to 60Hz. This is a difference to current Android devices which also render content animations at 120Hz. I don’t think this is of any practical difference in experience, however interesting. Otherwise, Apple’s Pro Motion on iPhones seems to work very well and without issues.

Web Browsing Battery Life 2016 (WiFi) Max Refresh

In the 120Hz result set, for which the new iPhone 13 Pro models are now the first Apple devices amongst the competition, the new phones directly introduce themselves as top performers.

The iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max lose respectively 14.5% and 13.5% over their 60Hz results which is generally in line with the 12.2% degradation the S21 Ultra sees – you can argue if Apple’s 60Hz is more efficient than Samsung’s or if Samsung’s 120Hz is more efficient than Apple’s, the difference remains small.

Given the much smaller battery of the 13 Pro Max, seemingly similar display technology and efficiency to the S21 Ultra, Apple’s battery life advantage remains in my opinion squarely on the massive efficiency advantages of Apple’s silicon, with the new A15 further increasing this discrepancy compared to the competition.

Battery Life Kings

Today’s investigation into the battery life results of the new iPhone 13 series confirms what many others have already mentioned already – it’s a significant upgrade over the iPhone 12 generation, with vast increases across the board. Apple’s new more efficient displays, larger batteries, as well as notably more efficient A15 chip represent a holy trifecta of hardware characteristic improvements that is extremely positive to the longevity of the new phones. There’s little more left to be said.

Comments Locked

83 Comments

View All Comments

  • lemurbutton - Monday, October 11, 2021 - link

    Nvm. It's right there.
  • GC2:CS - Monday, October 11, 2021 - link

    Looks like apple estimate that 13 Pro has shorter battery life than 13 is quite reasonable and provided numbers are in line with anandtech tests.

    Looks like lower end models will get better batteries down the line too, with sole exception being the 11 Pro vs 11.

    Also there is supposed lower reflectivity in iPhone 13 models thanks to re-introduction of integrated touch layer. Can you somehow elaborate ? It appears to me that way, at least under store lights.

    Also I am no professional, but if I remember correctly, 10-bit panels are a thing since iPhone X and auto brightness boost is a thing since 2016 iPad Pro and iPhone 7. Is that true ? I do not think that iPhone 12/13 should are 8 bit panels.

    Also I am very interested In PWM frequency of the Pro phones ? Did it went up to 480 Hz ? Is it easier/less noticeable on the eye now ?
  • id4andrei - Monday, October 11, 2021 - link

    For the upcoming review I'd kindly ask Mr. Frumusanu to look into reports of display dimming in broad daylight and throttling in games such as Genshin Impact. Even if it has the most powerful mobile soc, the ip 13, just like the 12 before it, cannot seem to sustain these numbers.
  • jospoortvliet - Wednesday, October 13, 2021 - link

    The previous article covered throttling of the gpu which is indeed substantial (but even when throttled the fastest out there).
  • Silver5urfer - Monday, October 11, 2021 - link

    But cannot become a pocket computer at all. The iOS is like a jail. Must comply with Apple ID and must give them everything and in return they keep all your data and face math data etc. Not even you can get a simple Analog jack or an expandable storage. You cannot even use the filesystem to copy anything you like, nor even customize the home screen remove their apps or set default applications, not even emulators for such a strong SoC.

    Seeing Apple's success every single Android OEM followed same garbage, no more chargers either. $1000 phones no chargers no earphones no nothing. Just pay for $150-300 wireless earphones which die after 1-2years.

    Bonus points for Apple, Face ID cannot be replaced by third party because unknown reasons. At this point smartphones are just social media devices, with some fancy camera features and more useful for basic browsing and those corporate mandated 2FA systems.
  • Blark64 - Monday, October 11, 2021 - link

    Just a few corrections to incorrect/out of date statements: Face ID data is encrypted, never leaves the phone, and is stored in the Secure Enclave where it is inaccessible even to someone who possesses the phone. Because of the secure hardware interlock between the faceID camera and the Secure Enclave, you must get the screen replaced by an authorized repair shop to ensure that the data is not being intercepted by a hacked/modified phone. You can remove the default apps, and arrange the Home Screen how you like.
  • TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, October 12, 2021 - link

    Uh huh. They couldnt just, you know, wipe the data if the hardware changed? How convenient they made this "secure" system require special apple tech that they pinky swear is needed.
  • Spunjji - Thursday, October 14, 2021 - link

    I think they already explained that part:
    "to ensure that the data is not being intercepted by a hacked/modified phone"
    Wiping the existing data wouldn't prevent this part of the problem.

    Don't get me wrong, I think Apple's approach to repairs is - for the most part - total bullshit, but this one at least makes some sort of sense.
  • Wrs - Monday, October 11, 2021 - link

    There's a critical reason FaceID can't be swapped by a third party. If it could be replaced with any other IR camera, just imagine what a criminal could do - intercept and emulate the camera feed like they would do with a poorly implemented password prompt. That's also how Snowden knows a phone can theoretically be tracked while shut down. It'd just be a modified OS that fakes the shutdown.
  • QueBert - Monday, October 11, 2021 - link

    Apple's Face ID is actually secure, enough so I can use it for my banking. I got a Pogo X3 NFC last month and when I set up face unlock it literally said this isn't secure and can be easily bypassed by someone holding up a picture of you.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now