I’ve frankly been shocked at just how incredibly long-lasting the iPhone XR’s battery life has been. 2 days between charges has been normal. Using ~40% of the battery every 24 hours.
On a Sunday I unplugged my iPhone and decided to see just how long it would last. The 1% mark came in 60 hours later on Tuesday evening. Three full days of use, where I used it as I normally would.
While boasting about this to a friend, the conversation went like this:
Me: “I reckon I could go 72 hours if I used low battery mode”, him: “Sounds like challenge time.”, me: “Challenge accepted.”
So here’s how it went. I wrote and edited most of this article on the phone during this experiment.
2019-01-30 0745: Unplugged my iPhone and immediately put it into pee-yellow low power mode. This is a little later than I’d normally unplug, but I’m considering it may run out of juice overnight on day three, so here’s hoping an extra hour will help.
2019-01-30 1345: 6 hours in, in which I:
- started writing this article,
- 30 minutes of listening to podcasts in the car
- doing regular food logging,
- replying to messages; and
- read my RSS subscriptions in Reeder
A pretty normal level of use for me. And the battery is at 96%! Incredibly that would take my normal 40%/24 hr burn rate down to 16%/24hr.
2019-01-30 2045: 13 hours in, and I’m at 84%. I think the main draw downs were a 1 hour walk I did with my Series 0 watch, which meant the phone was doing the GPS tracking. I also took a few short videos. But still, a fraction over 1% per hour while I’m actively using it. It’ll be interesting to see how it sips power overnight.
2019-01-31 0800: Overnight went from 80-76%. Right now it’s sitting at 74% after I went for my 30 minute morning walk while listening to podcasts. So 24 hours, 26% battery. That’s pushing a charge twice a week.
2019-01-31 2200: 51% and about to go to bed. 38 hours in, so my expectation that I’ll be able to get to 72 hours is looking good, but only just. I was on the phone for an hour today talking to our power company. Tomorrow we may be in a low reception area, so that could stress things. I’ll resist switching to aeroplane mode, though. 34 hours to go.
2019-02-01 0750: 48 hours in and the battery is at 44%. It was a little more drained last night than the night before, but I’m confident of getting to the 72-hour mark and beyond. I’m travelling today, so I expect weak cell signals along the road to be the biggest drain.
2019-02-01 07:48: 60 hours is where I hit 1% without low power mode on. With it on? 20%. With the phone sipping power overnight I’ll definitely get to 72 hours. But will I reach 80? 90? We’ll find out tomorrow. Today was a travel day so I expect the battery drained a little quicker with the GSM radio screaming for reception in low coverage areas. Despite that, this is still impressive.
2019-02-02 08:00: Over 72 hours! I’m sitting at 11%, so it’s getting reasonably dire. But it’s done. You can, at least with the way I use my phone, squeeze 3 full days from a single charge on the iPhone XR.
2019-02-02 1045: 5%, 75 hours. I doubt it’ll get to 80, but let’s see. This is all in the name of science now.
2019-02-02 1315: 1%, and I’m calling it. 77.5 hours. To call that impressive is an understatement.
Seventy seven hours. My old iPhone 6s would normally be close to dead by day’s end. This gets me through 3 days with a little room. For a modern, powerful smartphone it’s probably the best you can hope for without being ridiculous. If this is the direction Apple and others continue to go in, we may be back to the days of charging our phones when we can be bothered, once a week or so. Like we used to back in the day.
