The iPhone 17 Pro Max seems to have firmly cemented itself as the smartphone battery king, as seen by Mrwhosetheboss’s battery life test comparison. On this simulated usage test, Samsung’s flagship big phone, the Galaxy S25 Ultra, managed 11 hours 58 minute. In comparison, the iPhone 17 Pro Max managed a whopping 13 hours before it died.
Notably, this test used the UK version of the 17 Pro Max, which includes a physical SIM tray. The eSIM-only model sold in the United States and some other markets has an even bigger battery, and probably lasted at least another half an hour extra as a result.
While the Pro Max takes the crown, all of the new iPhone 17 and iPhone Air models actually performed well. The Air died first, at 7 hours 18 minutes. Three hours later, the base iPhone 17 died. A little after, the iPhone 17 Pro ran out of juice. That left the showdown of the big screen phones.
Even last year’s Apple flagship, the iPhone 16 Pro Max edged out the 2025 Samsung flagship in this test. The 16 Pro Max recored a time of 12 hours 15 minutes, suggesting the year-over-year jump from the 16 Pro Max to 17 Pro Max is equivalent to 1-2 hours of extra battery life in real-world activities.
Apple’s official specs for the 17 Pro Max report 35 hours of streaming video playback time. While the phone may actually be able to do that, in daily life, iPhones are put through their paces with much more strenuous tasks than optimized video playback from the Apple TV app. This explains the discrepancy between 13 hours and 35 hours.
The Mrwhostheboss test consisted of scrolling social media apps like TikTok and X, productivity apps like Slack, video recording, Spotify and more.
Chinese tech journalist Geekerwan conducted a similar test using the physical SIM tray iPhones, and found the jump from the previous generation to the 17 series to be even more dramatic. In their findings, the 17 Pro Max lasted almost two hours more than its predecessor. Even the base model iPhone 17 nearly matched the 16 Pro Max on longevity.
These are the full Geekerwan results:
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