Don't take this the wrong way...but I suggest for your own sanity you stop worrying about others and what they do with their phone. Obsessing over reasons why others manage to drain their phone's battery faster than you is a waste of your time, energy and an exercise in vanity.
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iPhone 16e Great 16e Battery Comparison
- Thread starter jntdroid
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It’s a bit funny that you think I worry or that it’s an obsession. It’s merely an observation. I’ve been here for a while, and I recall looking at battery life threads to gauge battery life of my future purchases. So I remember the numbers I saw. I’m seeing similar numbers today with phones with three times the capacity. That’s all I said.
You can do whatever you like.
In this thread alone, you have made 8 posts (the most user contributions to date) and written multiple paragraphs of text dedicated to the topic. Just let it go...
Non scientifically, my 16e battery has been great.
So much so, that I’d happily take it out without a charger or battery pack if I was out for 14 hours or so - with the XR and iOS 12 being the only other combination I’ve had where I could comfortably say this.
So much so, that I’d happily take it out without a charger or battery pack if I was out for 14 hours or so - with the XR and iOS 12 being the only other combination I’ve had where I could comfortably say this.
As somebody who used the iPhone Xʀ always on iOS 12 for 5.5 years, I can confirm its status as a full day phone in terms of battery life, with about 16-18 hours of SOT with light Wi-Fi use and a more “normal” 12 hours of outdoor Cellular (with outdoor brightness and LTE rather than low brightness and Wi-Fi).
I’m using the 16 Plus on iOS 18 now, and battery life is even more insane, extrapolating to about 27 and 19 hours respectively, although I need to test it more.
I’m curious since you mention that they are “the only two combos”. What other iPhones have you had?
My Xr was a revelation with its original os release. You were very sensible staying on it.
I just can’t resist the os updates even though you should never go one more then then one generation after the ios version that you device shipped with.
By the time it had iOS 16, its battery life was awful (admittedly it had gone down to early 80s battery capacity %age, but still).
My other phones?:
3GS - used to die mid afternoon if I went out for a day and took a few photos and texted a little etc.
4s - actually I remember this one being kinda ok. It wasn’t great but it was ok.
5s - had to carry a battery pack around with me as the battery life was appalling from the start. The 4g model simply drew too much power and it needed a bigger battery.
7 - was ok, but it always felt that the thinness was prioritised over battery life, which fell off a cliff with iOS 11.
Xr - have discussed
13 - terrible battery life from the start. The 5g modem ripped through the battery. There’s a theme here.
And now currently on the 16e, which is great. And I can see why apple has moved to their own 5g modem.
I was tempted by the 16 plus I have to say, but I want to wait until the ‘iPhone 17 air’ gets its next iteration as I want a phone that’s a little thinner, smaller and lighter than that. Glad it is working out for you. It’s a really nice phone.
A 6.5 screen would be the sweet spot for me, but hey 6.7 is fine if they keep on shrinking those bezels and chassis down.
Yeah, I always stay behind. As you can probably imagine by what I mentioned, I keep my iPhones (and iPads!) for a long time. I am not a frequent upgrader. Since I never update and upgrade very infrequently, that means that iOS compatibility on my older iPhones is very feeble, so I can’t go to a different iPhone if I am unsatisfied and I can’t downgrade either. If I am going to keep an iPhone or iPad for years on end, I have to stay behind if I want quality. I figure stuff out with compatibility. I grab different devices. I use my Mac if Safari fails, I do what I can with what I have to stay behind. I need my devices to be good and sadly, this is the only way and it has been from day one. I can’t use an iPhone for 5.5 years as my main iPhone if it’s going to collapse by year 2.5.
Interestingly, a friend also got an iPhone Xʀ on iOS 12 (a little before I got mine), but they loved to update everything and we discussed this a lot. The Xʀ changed their mind. By iOS 15, the phone was reaching the end of the day, but barely. Ending it with 5% when compared to the 40-50% it ended up with on iOS 12. By iOS 16, it was obliterated. They upgraded to their current 13… which remains on iOS 15 after I recommended never updating for years on end.
I used a 5s (which I bought late and therefore always had iOS 8.2 on it) and battery life with Wi-Fi was usable. Like you said, enable LTE and battery life collapsed, giving me about 3 hours of SOT which is simply unusable. The only “victim” I ever had, I dropped a power bank on it which destroyed the tempered glass and the screen underneath. The phone is in a drawer, broken, still on iOS 8.2.
I used a 6s on iOS 9 and on LTE it was infinitely better than the 5s. It matched a friend’s iPhone 7 on iOS 10, so I think they were similar. iOS 11 destroyed both, but I didn’t update after Apple forced it out of iOS 9 into iOS 13 four years later and I already had the Xʀ.
The 16e seems pretty similar to the 16 Plus, so it should be as amazing as mine. It’s incredible what they did, really. A regular-sized iPhone with the battery life of a Plus model. Almost like the 1st-gen SE! That one, on iOS 9, almost matched the 6s Plus. It wasn’t quiiiiite there, but it was very, very close. Screenshots shared by Forum users showed about 9-10 hours of light SOT, a smidge above the 7-8 of the regular 6s and a little below the 11-12 of the 6s Plus (which I can confirm because I got that on my iPhone 7 Plus on iOS 10).
I think that, relative to size, the 1st-gen SE and the 16e are the best iPhones ever in terms of battery life. The 16e may be due to the modem and the battery size relative to device size. I think the little SE was due to the absurd efficiency of the A9 on iOS 9. I think that the only combo to be better than that is the A12 on iOS 12, which was praised on every device, including the third-gen (and first full-screen design) A12X iPad Pro. Sadly, I don’t think many third-gen iPad Pros remain on iOS 12. I have NEVER seen one mentioned.
Hopefully the Air has a good battery life. It seems it’s the sweet spot for you and I hope Apple delivers.
Frankly, the 16 Plus is uncomfortable to use with one hand. I was fine with the Xʀ, but the Plus is definitely the absolute limit. I can barely take pictures with one hand, so it’s not truly one-handed. I knew that when buying, and I actually considered the regular 16, but since the 7 Plus I mentioned was broken (I couldn’t exchange it on time and it had a broken camera… sad, because I wanted to try Portrait mode and it didn’t work. The main camera was blurry, too), I wanted to give the Plus a fair try.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply!
Yeah growing iOS inefficiency for previous generations of phones is apple’s dirty secret to get everyone to upgrade.
When I feel that a big reason to upgrade from the 13 because the autocorrect in iMessage is virtually tripling over itself, it’s getting ridiculous.
But I also suspect that they need a year when they do a ‘snow leopard’ refactoring test to really optimise everything.
Sadly, if they insist on a big bang release packed with features each September, this seems like a distant dream.
I do think that there’s something not great going on with Apple’s engineering. Not that I think their engineers are bad. But because this marketing driven rush to implement feature after feature evidently means that throughout the OS is suffering.
And it seems crazy. Unless there is a break through year where the chassis really changes or a piece of new tech comes along, people upgrade when gradually the collection of hardware features ‘add up’ and make it time for an upgrade.
I don’t think anyone this year went - wow this camera control looks amazing I simply must upgrade’.
You are completely right. They should treat this whole issue differently, and the number one goal should be maximum performance and battery life. This shouldn’t be an issue after 18 iterations. But they are clearly not interested.
As users, we must accept that. I talk about this a lot, but internally I have accepted that this is the case. So I defend myself the best I can. I keep my devices is as good of a shape as possible by not updating.
I would tell you that due to the 16e’s absurd battery life and incredible efficiency, you are at a lesser risk for battery life degradation… and I would be lying to you. Remember this: they can kill anything and everything via iOS updates.
They killed the Xʀ. They killed the 7 Plus. They killed the 8 Plus. They will kill everything. 12 hours of original SOT. 16 hours. 20 hours. There is no limit yet. The 16e’s battery life, like the original video shows, is incredible. For now. Don’t count on it staying that way. iOS 19 is almost certainly safe. iOS 20 has a high likelihood of being safe. iOS 21 and onwards are all toss-ups. Expect it to worsen, and update knowing that, if you want to keep it up to date.
I won’t tell people to struggle with compatibility (by year 5 it is an issue, and there are probably many people chugging along with an iPhone Xʀ on iOS 18 with a mediocre battery life. iOS 12 isn’t really usable for most people - I should know, I was using it up until this month), but I will tell people not to expect anything past the second major update. As long as you keep that in mind, you can update it you like, but I’ll always recommend people not to.