The Battery Life We’ve Been Dying For

I’ll regale them with stories of portable chargers the size of cinder blocks strapped to the backs of our phones. I’ll tell them how we scoured walls in search of power outlets. I’ll describe the panic that set in when the red empty-battery icon dipped below 5%.

In the scheme of iPhone upgrade history, the new iPhone 11, 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max sure seem boring. Same designs…but new colors! Cameras…but three of them! Glass…but stronger?! After a week of testing, I can tell you that’s mostly just smoke-and-mirrors marketing, except for one thing many of us have wanted all along: phones that are a bit heavier and thicker—but work when we damn well need them to. Yes, longer battery life.

If you haven’t been following along, here’s the lineup, which arrives Friday:

• iPhone 11 ($699 and up): An upgrade to last year’s iPhone XR, it has a 6.1-inch screen that covers the whole front (no fingerprint sensor) and two cameras on the back. The LCD screen isn’t as nice as the OLED on the pricier models, but I promise you won’t even think about it.

• iPhone 11 Pro ($999 and up): The smallest of the bunch with a 5.8-inch OLED screen, it now has three cameras on the back.

• iPhone 11 Pro Max ($1,099 and up): Identical to the 11 Pro, save for a 6.5-inch screen.

Apple has been talking up these phones’ cameras, and it’s true: If you enjoy taking pictures, especially of kids or pets, they do have some great tricks. The wide-angle camera is sure to have people mistaking me for Ansel Adams. The newly added night mode, while a bit buggy, is an improvement over previous dimly lit, washed-out shots.

Now, as we review my key findings, promise me you’ll follow my annual advice: Regardless of what you’re upgrading from, choose which features matter to you most, and try to ignore Apple’s marketing machine.

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All Day, Every Day Battery

Last year, I upgraded to the iPhone XR purely for its all-day battery life. After my daily routine of quite-heavy phone use, I have about 5% to 10% still remaining by my 11:30 p.m. bedtime—with no extra charging during the day.

All three new iPhones met or exceeded that in my real-world use. However, my video streaming tests didn’t always show as big of a leap in battery life as my actual usage—nor as big as Apple’s battery-life claims. Battery testing is a tricky thing. Between screen-brightness settings and our countless app options, we all use our phones differently. Here are my notes on all three phones.

iPhone 11: In my full day using the 11 as my primary phone (email, a lot of Twitter and texting, phone calls, too much tapping through Instagram), I was left with a 15% charge by 11:30 p.m. The iPhone 11 streamed video on YouTube for 13 hours and 20 minutes—about 20 minutes longer than the XR. (Apple promises an extra hour of battery life.)

iPhone 11 Pro: With the 11 Pro as my primary phone, I was left with just under a 10% charge at 11 p.m. That’s far longer than I used to get with the X but not as long as with the 11. The 11 Pro streamed video on YouTube for 13 hours—three hours longer than the XS.

iPhone 11 Pro Max: On 11 Pro Max battery-testing day, I was left with a roughly 20% charge by lights out. I could go to sleep and wake up with enough juice to get me through the morning. Even after a grueling day of camera testing at the New York Renaissance Faire, it had 25% left, while the other two were in the dreaded 10% territory.

Why are the Pro phones lasting so much longer? The screen and processor are more power efficient, but they also have bigger batteries—part of the reason they’re a fraction of an ounce heavier and 0.02 inches thicker.

Miracles happen, my friends. After more than a decade of including the rinky-dink five-watt charging cube in the box, the Pros finally include faster 18-watt chargers. They went from zero to 50% in just 30 minutes.