New Report Says the iPhone 7 Has Worse Battery Life of All Current Smartphones

[Maura]

UK consumer organisation Which? has published a damning report about the iPhone 7 battery life in which it says that Apple’s latest iPhone has the worst battery life of all current flagship smartphones, writes 9to5 Mac.

“We compared the iPhone 7’s battery life, when making calls and browsing the web, to those of three top Android competitors: the Samsung Galaxy S7, HTC 10 and LG G5, and the results were staggering,” reported Which?

Which? has a very good reputation as a consumer organisation in the UK; its tests are usually very scientific and thorough, and take important variables into account that some other tests might not bother with, as it explains here:

“In the interests of fairness, we test battery life using our own phone network simulator. This ensures that the signal strength is consistent for each test, which is important as a phone has to expend more power when it’s struggling for reception. We also set the screen brightness on every phone to the same level.”

While the web-browsing differences weren’t too bad, the call-time differences were significant, with the iPhone 7 only lasting 712 minutes.

As 9to5 Mac points out, the iPhone 7 tested by Which? actually has the smallest battery of all the smartphone models tested. The larger batteries tested understandably performed better.

Source: Which? says iPhone 7 has worst battery-life of all current flagship smartphones

 

[KevinJS]

Shucks! Does this mean I'm going to have to buy a 7+?

 

[Junior]

712 minutes is about 694 more minutes than I use making actual phone calls between full cap charges.

 

[KevinJS]

712 minutes is about 694 more minutes than I use making actual phone calls between full cap charges.

That was pretty much my thought. If I get a phone call, I can't wait to end it so I can go back to the reason I actually have the thing.

 

[scifan57]

712 minutes is more call time minutes than I've used since I bought my first iPhone in 2012.

 

[scifan57]

Also, 712 minutes is almost 12 hours. Apple says it should last for up to 14 hours of talk time. Who spends 12 hours on the phone in a day?

 

[KevinJS]

Also, 712 minutes is almost 12 hours. Apple says it should last for up to 14 hours of talk time. Who spends 12 hours on the phone in a day?

My wife must come pretty close. She has been known to have 1hour+ conversations with a neighbour. If they'd opened the windows they could have just shouted.

 

[ardchoille]

I wonder if that company turned off location services and background app refresh for apps that don't need it prior to performing their tests. Some may argue, but those settings make a rather large difference where battery life is concerned.

 

[KevinJS]

Which? Is well-known for its whining, anti-corporate attitude and over-emotional language. If people can't build charging time into their schedule, they need to rethink their lifestyle.

 

[KevinJS]

It amuses me that they were "staggered" by the revelation that a smaller battery holds less charge. [/condescension]

 

[scifan57]

Samsung phones have larger batteries to drive power hungry displays and a power inefficient operating system. When you're on a phone call the screen is off and you're not maxing out the CPU. I'm not at all surprised that Samsung phones were among the ones that had better talk time than the iPhone 7. If they did almost any other test, I'm sure the iPhone 7 would have done much better in comparison.
I wouldnt be surprised in the least if it turned out that that talk time test was deliberately chosen because they knew it would cast the iPhone 7 in a bad light.

 

[KevinJS]

It's telling that the comparison was done with the 7 and not the 7+ with the larger battery.

 

[ardchoille]

Samsung phones have larger batteries to drive power hungry displays and a power inefficient operating system.

Yes, and people always point out the fact that iPhones don't have as many CPU cores as some Android phones, but they don't understand that Android is such a mess that the device actually needs all of those extra cores in order to do the same amount of work that iOS does with less cores. It's all about the efficiency of the OS. Some manufacturers are quite skilled at making a disadvantage sound beneficial.

EDIT: I'm still wondering why they chose to show the 3G benchmarks.. I haven't seen 3G in years, LTE has been the norm here.

 

[scifan57]

It's telling that the comparison was done with the 7 and not the 7+ with the larger battery.

That would have put the 7 Plus at the head of the pack. Can't have that, can we.

 

[KevinJS]

I wonder if that company turned off location services and background app refresh for apps that don't need it prior to performing their tests. Some may argue, but those settings make a rather large difference where battery life is concerned.

I'm not going to attempt to argue THAT particular point with you. I remember your thread where you showed how long a battery could last between charges.