Test Demonstrates Apple Over Exaggerated iPhone Battery By 18% To 51%

Without a doubt, Battery life has become a bottleneck restricting the development of smartphones. Hence, all major manufacturers boast that ...

Without a doubt, Battery life has become a bottleneck restricting the development of smartphones. Hence, all major manufacturers boast that their machines have excellent battery performance. Is this really true? The UK evaluation agency, Which?, recently, tested more than 50 new, fully-charged smartphones (at least 6 phones per brand) from five popular brands in the market and evaluated the average talk time per phone. Then compare these test results with what these manufacturers claimed.

Which? discovered that Apple and HTC significantly exaggerated the battery life of their devices. The results show Apple overstate battery life by 18% to 51%. Among them, the iPhone XR has the worst battery life. With Apple claim that the device's built-in battery is able to offer 25 hours of talk time, whereas Which? believes that it only lasts 16 hours and 32 minutes.

Meanwhile, HTC officially claim that their smartphone has an average talk time of 20.5 hours, although Which? has determined it to be 19.6 hours, fall short of 5%.

Natalie Hitchins, head of Home products and services, said: “With mobile phones now an essential part of everyday life, we should be able to count on our handsets living up to the manufacturer’s claims. There are clearly questions here around how long some mobile phone batteries will last and so it’s important to make sure you find an independent source of reliable information when buying your next phone"

Obviously, Apple and HTC do not agree with Which?. An Apple spokesperson commented:

We rigorously test our products and stand behind our battery life claims. With tight integration between hardware and software, the iPhone is engineered to intelligently manage power usage to maximize battery life. Our testing methodology reflects that intelligence. Which? haven’t shared their methodology with us so we can’t compare their results to ours. We share our methodology for testing which we publish in detail here.

On the other hand, Nokia, Samsung, and Sony all performed well and Which? found that they underestimated the talk time. For example, Sony's Xperia Z5 Compact offers 9 hours of extra talk time (25 hours and 52 minutes instead of the official 17 hours). Of course, it's unclear what method did Which? use, so don't take it seriously.

Image Via iFixit