iPhone 13 mini iPhone 13 Mini’s battery life has been awesome!

[Abstract]

I haven’t had my 13 Mini for that long, but I just wanted to take the opportunity to convince any “13 regular or Mini” fence-sitters that my Mini’s battery life has been awesome.

I’m coming from an XR, which itself had phenomenal battery life by 2018 standards. I feel that the Mini is getting similar battery life as a new XR.

Currently, my battery life is at 78%. SOT has been 1h and 49min. ?????

I’ve been mostly:

-browsing on MacRumors
-browsing Twitter (watching NBA highlights)
-troubleshooting my Apple Watch to my phone (it took 1 hour and lots of headache…)

I took 4 photos, took 3 phone calls, and used Microsoft Teams a bunch.

No, I’m not doing anything extreme like editing 4K video, but this is my first Monday with it, and I’m happy with how well it’s managing a weekday so far at work. ?

 

[merc0899]

I went 12 Mini to 13 Pro Max. I loved the mini but the battery life was at times annoying. 13 Pro Max now 4hrs 36mins SOT at 81%. Battery is a beast but size can be annoying. Gonna give it a week or so to try it out but I’m thinking I may go 13 mini.

 

[Abstract]

UPDATE: 62% battery remaining, and 2h 51m of SOT.

I went 12 Mini to 13 Pro Max. I loved the mini but the battery life was at times annoying. 13 Pro Max now 4hrs 36mins SOT at 81%. Battery is a beast but size can be annoying. Gonna give it a week or so to try it out but I’m thinking I may go 13 mini.

Listen, the battery life goalposts will always move, but lots of people bought a larger-than-desired phone because of battery life concerns. Some people will use that reasoning again this year (“the 13 lasts longer than the Mini”), but I’m here to say it’s not like last year, where choosing the regular 12 over the Mini made sense. The 13 Mini is good (like XR), while the 13 and 13 Pro would be incredible (comparable to 12PM).

This year? No need to worry unless you’re outdoors all day (screen at full brightness) or you play lots of games.

 

[Rigby]

Can confirm. I received the phone on Friday, installed everything (I set up the phone from scratch). Since then my usual pandemic light use and no charging. It's now Sunday evening here and I still have juice left. Much better than my previous SE (2020).

 

[diane143]

What does SOT mean please? Oh wait, is it Screen On Time?

I am finding myself at about 17% by bedtime with my 13 Mini. But I just got it activated on Monday and I use an app called Glympse when I go out riding, and both times didn't turn it off for many hours after I got home.

 

[felixroqu3]

Can confirm as well. Got a launch day iPhone 13 Pro Max due to the battery life. Coming from a 12 Pro, I didn't think the weight/size would bother me as much. After 4 days of use, I was getting hand cramps, the phone felt too heavy and bulky to carry around. Yes, battery life is AMAZING. Would last me 2 days. But im not a power user. I don't record videos and am not on my phone 24/7. I definitely wasn't fully taking advantage of the battery life.

Went to the store and got a 13 mini to test it out and see if the smaller battery would be enough for me. So far, im absolutely in love with the mini. Its so incredibly light, small, and therefore pocketable. I barely feel it in my pockets. Also, the battery has lasted me all day. Yesterday was a very heavy day usage wise, and at the end of the night the phone was at 18% before I plugged it in. Im definitely returning the Pro Max tomorrow.

 

[Abstract]

What does SOT mean please? Oh wait, is it Screen On Time?

I am finding myself at about 17% by bedtime with my 13 Mini. But I just got it activated on Monday and I use an app called Glympse when I go out riding, and both times didn't turn it off for many hours after I got home.

Generally, I find outside use to be a huge battery drain because the screen goes to max brightness. OLED screens are generally battery efficient because black and dark grey pixels basically use no power, but at max brightness, they actually use far more power than LCD.

I’m moving on from an XR, so that’s what I’m comparing to. I can see the difference in power consumption outdoors with both screens at max brightness.

Overall though, my 13 Mini is getting at least 7.0 hours of SOT with mostly indoor use, mixed with 30 minutes of outdoor use.
This is on 4G most of the time, not WiFi.

 

[IJBrekke]

I’m definitely not a power user (average screen time is about 2.5 hours a day) but I really tried to push my new 13 mini yesterday, using it as much as I could. Mostly on Wi-Fi between home and work, but lots of screen use. It went from 100% at 7am to 25% at 11:15pm. I’m quite satisfied with that.

 

[prazakj]

It’s interesting topic. I have 12 mini but battery life was quite tough for me sometimes, on lighter days it was OK - I almost never needed to juice up in the late afternoon, but some days I had to. I’m still quite torn this year. Besides mini feels great in one hand, sometimes I just think that it’s better to go bigger becuase of the future. Next year there won’t be another mini and SE (possibly) go larger too. I’m just a bit of scared that getting mini again will be bad for myself in a long run. Battery will be better in bigger 13 for a longer period and also maybe changes in iOS in future will be different. I remember that I got iPhone SE 1st gen and after 3 months with iOS 10 I switched to iPhone 7 because iOS 10 was a disaster for a smaller iPhone. I just think that this could happen again. What do you say about my worries? ?I’m a bit of tempted to go for a regular 13 but that means I could second guessed myself about size afterwards and if I would go for 13 I could second guessed myself again because of the size same on the 13 Pro. Which has a terrific camera system but I don’t want to spend that much this year. @Abstract Thanks anyway.

 

[heyyitssusan]

Indeed! Definitely better than my regular 12. And I'm at 39% currently.

 

[ihakim]

Some of you guys are pulling some pretty impressive stats. Here are mine for the 13 mini. Not sure if mine is considered great? A lot of time with apps that are counting as screen on time which actually aren’t like teams and phone. I use light mode during the day and dark mode at night. I came from the iPhone XR which had much better battery life. Can’t imagine how the mini would survive if I opened up google maps. Perhaps my expectations are just too high for the mini but I love it’s form factor.

 

[827538]

Wife went from an 8 to a 13 Mini and has been very happy with the battery life. I have a 13 Pro and I’m honestly jealous of how nice it is to use one handed. I came from a 5 year old 6S so you can imagine how my battery life feels.

 

[Cassandle]

Really helpful thread, thanks. I’m using an XR and have always had good battery life, and how the Mini compared to this phone in terms of battery is one of the things I’ve worried about. I know in pretty much every other respect the Mini is a better phone…

 

[heyyitssusan]

Some of you guys are pulling some pretty impressive stats. Here are mine for the 13 mini. Not sure if mine is considered great? A lot of time with apps that are counting as screen on time which actually aren’t like teams and phone. I use light mode during the day and dark mode at night. I came from the iPhone XR which had much better battery life. Can’t imagine how the mini would survive if I opened up google maps. Perhaps my expectations are just too high for the mini but I love it’s form factor.

View attachment 1858708 View attachment 1858711 View attachment 1858712

That is pretty good. It looks like you are at at least 40-50% battery still and are only at 5.5 hours..

 

[Abstract]

Indeed! Definitely better than my regular 12. And I'm at 39% currently.

View attachment 1858704

Wow!!! ???

Um….I’m still OK with the 6-7.5 hours that I’m getting. A bit jealous nonetheless! ?

 

[MrAperture]

Battery Life is much improved over the 12 Mini. I’m sitting at 45% battery life left as I type this.

 

[jeremydc]

Wow!!! ???

Um….I’m still OK with the 6-7.5 hours that I’m getting. A bit jealous nonetheless! ?

This is definitely the norm. As mentioned before, real world usage is around 6 . Anything above 7.5 is inflated in a controlled setting.

 

[Abstract]

This is definitely the norm. As mentioned before, real world usage is around 6 . Anything above 7.5 is inflated in a controlled setting.

Depends. I have truly and honestly had a projected 8 hours of SOT, and not under “controlled” conditions.

This past Tuesday, I spent an entire afternoon on Twitter. That’s 4.5 hours, on perfect 4G signal, entirely indoors. At work. It was boring, but better than doing actual work, I suppose. Had 52-53% left when I went home.

Long story, but I was waiting for a server technician to finish doing something, but wasn’t allowed to leave them alone in a server room due to hospital guidelines, and attempted cyberattacks on our system several years ago. I did some work on my phone, but by and large, it was me, Twitter, and NBA pre-season highlights, posts, slander, etc.


If anything, I find my iPhone uses more battery on weekends. Despite being on WiFi at home, I am outdoors more often, so maybe it has something to do with being at max brightness more often. On weekends, I get a projected 6 hours. I typically only use 3-4 hours on weekends, so no big deal.

 

[jayducharme]

I agree. Although I never had complaints about my 12 mini, my 13 mini has been easily lasting the whole day with moderate use. Each week I have to video an hour-long church service in HD. The iPhone loses about 10% of its power doing that, and that's fine for me. I've shot 4k video and haven't seen much difference in battery life.

 

[prazakj]

Anyone here who has an experience of an iPhone 13 mini and using dual SIM? Is it the battery life still better than it was with 12 mini? Thanks all!

 

[hatchettjack]

Mine lasts me all day! And I get 2.5 days with my MagSafe battery pack!

 

[prazakj]

Mine has around 4hours of SoT and I can get a full day despite bad experience with 12 mini.

 

[JM]

13 mini has about the perfect amount of moderate “all day use”.

I’ll get anywhere from 2-3 hours of SOT with varying screen off usage for 50% battery use. Only one day have I had to charge up in the evening, and that’s because it was at 20% and I had only charged to 80% at the beginning of day.

Still have whiplash from bad iPhone battery life from years ago, but this mini should be trusted to get through the day.

 

[1rottenapple]

definitely notice a different battery stamina compared to the 12 mini in my 13 mini. Of course bigger iPhones will have better battery but I’ve never run out of power and I don’t mind charging at 5pm or 8pm I have power plugs everywhere and MagSafe battery pack and 2 anker portable chargers. Comfort and size is more of a priority. Not sure what I’m going to do in 3 years when there’s still no mini equivalent.

 

[gregrose]

I love my 13 mini. It’s a beast and battery is great.