51 minutes ago
2
Follow ZDNET: Add america arsenic a preferred source connected Google.
ZDNET's cardinal takeaways
- The artillery successful my 15 Pro Max was atrocious aft 18 months of use.
- I did everything Apple suggested to support it successful tip-top condition.
- I'm going backmost to 100% charging with the iPhone 17 Pro Max.
When I got my iPhone 15 Pro Max successful September 2023, I decided that I'd bash everything I could to marque the artillery last. Well, an mishap destroyed that handset, truthful I restarted the experimentation successful March 2024.
CNET: iPhone Battery Showdown: 3 Years of Data Show How the iPhone 17 Models Measure Up
I wanted to spot conscionable however overmuch lifespan I could get retired of the battery.
Battery beingness obsession
In my experience, nary taxable generates much articles, blog posts, and YouTube videos than however to get the champion imaginable artillery beingness from your iPhone, some regular runtime and wide lifespan. It's besides the taxable connected which I get the astir questions and comments.
People person been obsessed with their iPhone's artillery beingness since time one, and the much metrics and tweaks Apple adds to iOS to delve into what the artillery is doing, the worse it has become. Once Apple adjacent added a diagnostic that allowed users to headdress artillery complaint levels to prolong the lifespan of their battery.
Also: Changing these 6 settings connected my iPad greatly extended its artillery beingness by hours
But if each infinitesimal of runtime, each percent constituent of artillery beingness matters, does it marque consciousness to sacrifice 20% -- or, to enactment that different way, one-fifth -- of your battery's capacity?
It seems that the iPhone's longer artillery beingness makes the tradeoff worthwhile. After all, Apple claims that iPhone 15 models and aboriginal tin "retain 80% of their archetypal capableness astatine 1,000 implicit complaint cycles nether perfect conditions." I was funny arsenic to what "under perfect conditions" meant, but I was determined to springiness my artillery the champion accidental possible.
So I acceptable my artillery complaint bounds to 80%, putting a important but manageable dent successful my regular runtime (manageable initially, astatine least), and got connected with my life.
Initially, things were bully
Great, successful fact. After the archetypal fewer days of battery-induced anxiety, I nary longer thought astir oregon noticed the reduced artillery level, and I would seldom extremity the time with little than 35% charge.
A little implicit a twelvemonth and 355 recharge cycles -- astir 1 a time -- into the experiment, the battery's maximum capableness had dropped to 91%.
By this point, I was already starting to consciousness the pinch from the operation of lone charging to 80% and the artillery wear. Those days erstwhile my iPhone would complaint each the mode to 100% for calibration purposes -- it does this occasionally contempt the bounds -- were similar a enactment of caller air.
Also: I changed these 8 Apple Watch settings to importantly widen artillery life
Battery anxiousness returned.
I americium a dense iPhone user, and it's ne'er much than an arm's scope away. And I cognize that dense usage not lone accelerates artillery degradation due to the fact that of the accrued recharge cycles, but besides intensifies it, reducing the wide lifespan of the artillery cells.
I persisted
Fast guardant to the opening of September.
The iPhone was 17 months old, and the artillery had 501 recharge cycles nether its belt, astir precisely halfway done those 1,000 recharge cycles, with maximum capableness astatine 89%. Battery beingness was horrendous. I'd commencement the time astatine 80% charge, and by mid to precocious afternoon, it was hovering adjacent to -- if not dipped beneath -- the 20% zone. By this point, power banks had go an indispensable portion of my mundane carry.
Also: I tested the iPhone 17 Pro Max, and this diagnostic unsocial justifies an upgrade from the 16
I adjacent temporarily raised the complaint bounds to 100%, and portion that helped, artillery beingness was inactive horrible.
And astatine this level, I couldn't adjacent wage Apple to regenerate the battery, due to the fact that extracurricular of exceptional circumstances, you person to hold for the maximum capableness to driblet beneath 80%.
Also: The champion GaN chargers of 2025: Expert tested
So, for maine astatine least, the effectual lifespan of a top-of-the-line iPhone Pro Max is little than 2 years.
So I gave up and bought an iPhone 17 Pro Max, and erstwhile again I tin marque it done a time without needing a charge. It's a night-and-day difference.
The iPhone 17 Pro Max is bully for a agelong day... for now.
A illustration of 1
Maybe my artillery was peculiarly puny, oregon possibly it's me. But I'm not the lone 1 to consciousness that sacrificing 20% of my artillery capableness successful speech for the committedness of amended artillery beingness isn't worthy it. And I'm not the lone one.
Also: iPhone artillery worse aft updating to iOS 26? Here's why, and however I fixed it
Juli Clover, penning for MacRumors, has been carrying retired a akin experimentation and came to this conclusion:
"I present person 2 years of information with my iPhone constricted to an 80 percent charge, and I don't deliberation it's been worthy it."
I agree, which is wherefore I'm going backmost to 100% charging and alternatively utilizing optimized artillery charging, a diagnostic that delays the complaint from 80 to 100% truthful it happens successful clip for you to commencement the time (this diagnostic takes a portion to activate due to the fact that it needs clip for the handset to larn your patterns). This seemed to bash much to trim artillery wear, astatine slightest connected earlier iPhones I had. So, possibly this, combined with the vapor enclosure cooling, volition support my caller artillery moving beardown for longer.
I tin hope.
English (US) ·