Reduced iPhone battery life blamed on adoption of OLED screens
An iPhone's battery life can be near immeasurable with so many factors to take into consideration. Between the apps being used, wireless connectivity, screen brightness and other nuances, a lot can affect this vital performance stat, but a new report suggests the biggest offenders are the impressive OLED displays Apple baked into its flagship phones.
iPhone XS Max HDR OLED display
As noted by The Washington Post's Geoffery Fowler, and contrary to the common belief that all tech products improve with each generation, the battery life of advanced smartphones like iPhone is on the decline. This is in spite of advancements in processing efficiency and, for some handset makers, increases in lithium-ion battery cell size.
In a recent round of testing, Fowler found his iPhone XS achieved worse battery benchmarks than the year-old iPhone X, results echoed by many other tech journalists.
Fowler contacted several other tech reviewers from CNET, Consumer Reports and Tom's Guide to discuss battery testing techniques to suss out what could be causing newer phones to have decidedly shorter battery lives in daily use.
While many factors impact battery life, such as power hungry apps, added computing requirements and our collective device addictions, the consensus was that cutting-edge screens included on the newest phones might be the largest contributor. The outlets use different testing methodologies, from robot fingers to looping videos and constantly refreshed web pages, but many reached the same conclusion. Consumer Reports was the lone publication to see iPhone XS and XS Max outlast iPhone X in its testing regimen.
The stunning OLED displays on the iPhone XS and XS Max look great in use, but can require a lot more power to operate than traditional LCD panels. That additional power draw is outpacing gains in battery improvements.
"Batteries improve at a very slow pace, about 5 percent per year, but phone power consumption is growing up faster than 5 percent," says Nadim Maluf, CEO of battery optimization firm Qnovo.
That explains why the iPhone XR has such exceptional battery life, something AppleInsider noted in its own testing. The iPhone XR utilizes a Liquid Retina LCD display rather than the high-resolution OLED found in the XS and XS Max.
Even though the XR screen is larger than that of the XS, Fowler found it lasted three hours longer than the iPhone XS in his battery life test.
Looking to the future, battery life could take further hits as companies like Apple adopt more power hungry technologies. Newer, higher resolution displays, as well as upcoming 5G cellular connectivity, could severely detract from a phone's battery life. That is until new battery technologies are invented.
Fowler included a number of helpful tips to remember when trying to get the most battery life possible out of your iPhone including using Low Power Mode, keeping the brightness down and staying on Wi-Fi (or airplane mode) whenever possible.
iPhone XS Max HDR OLED display
As noted by The Washington Post's Geoffery Fowler, and contrary to the common belief that all tech products improve with each generation, the battery life of advanced smartphones like iPhone is on the decline. This is in spite of advancements in processing efficiency and, for some handset makers, increases in lithium-ion battery cell size.
In a recent round of testing, Fowler found his iPhone XS achieved worse battery benchmarks than the year-old iPhone X, results echoed by many other tech journalists.
Fowler contacted several other tech reviewers from CNET, Consumer Reports and Tom's Guide to discuss battery testing techniques to suss out what could be causing newer phones to have decidedly shorter battery lives in daily use.
While many factors impact battery life, such as power hungry apps, added computing requirements and our collective device addictions, the consensus was that cutting-edge screens included on the newest phones might be the largest contributor. The outlets use different testing methodologies, from robot fingers to looping videos and constantly refreshed web pages, but many reached the same conclusion. Consumer Reports was the lone publication to see iPhone XS and XS Max outlast iPhone X in its testing regimen.
The stunning OLED displays on the iPhone XS and XS Max look great in use, but can require a lot more power to operate than traditional LCD panels. That additional power draw is outpacing gains in battery improvements.
"Batteries improve at a very slow pace, about 5 percent per year, but phone power consumption is growing up faster than 5 percent," says Nadim Maluf, CEO of battery optimization firm Qnovo.
That explains why the iPhone XR has such exceptional battery life, something AppleInsider noted in its own testing. The iPhone XR utilizes a Liquid Retina LCD display rather than the high-resolution OLED found in the XS and XS Max.
Even though the XR screen is larger than that of the XS, Fowler found it lasted three hours longer than the iPhone XS in his battery life test.
Looking to the future, battery life could take further hits as companies like Apple adopt more power hungry technologies. Newer, higher resolution displays, as well as upcoming 5G cellular connectivity, could severely detract from a phone's battery life. That is until new battery technologies are invented.
Fowler included a number of helpful tips to remember when trying to get the most battery life possible out of your iPhone including using Low Power Mode, keeping the brightness down and staying on Wi-Fi (or airplane mode) whenever possible.
Comments
Apple released respective graphics in black background for good reasons - to use as wall paper or lock screen!!! There are other settings which helps on battery life as well. The main culprit of battery drain is that more apps are now using background refresh and location services. Disable all those apps which one does not require to constantly refresh in background or polling location. A huge improvement!!!
I have never been able to run iPhones for 1.5-2 days on a single full charge in the past since iPhone 4. Now with iPhone X, I am able to. That says a lot...
Basically, every tester could be right, including Consumer Reports, just depending on when they tested.
Of course if you have more black or darker colours the OLED will do better, but that doesn’t reflect most people’s usage.
It’s totally worth it though. OLED can be nice. I’m not sure why anyone cares that they can use more power.
That is the exact same behaviour I saw as well. My XS Max seemed to drain faster than my X. Now, about 1.5 months later, the XS Max is doing really well.
I also think that the bug, where it wouldn't charge till it was unlocked on occasions, may have played a part as well. I was caught off-guard a couple of times by that.
As others suggest, I turn off background app refresh on everything I can; change email to only retrieve when I am in the app and all the other tricks to maximize battery life. If doing it all over, I would have waited for the XR purely for battery life reasons. Still, I’m happy with the XS and spoiled because I can simply use the 7 plus if / as needed to max out battery life on both.
Nothing new, that was discussed years ago here, long before the iPhone X. OLED is the culprit.
Theoretically, that is.
Once upon a time it was mostly something us nerds used, and a lot of screen tech actually meant that there was a lot of light bleed through (as the black had to block the backlight); but now dark mode makes sense all over the board… Fits better with the designs, more in line with what's perceived as good design nowadays, and it saves power.