When it comes to phones, battery life is one of the top preferences when making a buying decision, and this year Apple finally seems to have nailed it with the iPhone 17 Pro Max. On paper, Apple promised more endurance, but in real-world tests, the phone actually delivered. The bigger battery, better cooling, and that new A19 Pro chip all worked together to give us the biggest jump in years.
iPhone 17 Pro Max delivers 13 hours of real-world battery life thanks to a bigger cell, improved thermals, and A19 Pro chip
A new test conducted by YouTuber Mrwhosetheboss showed the iPhone 17 Pro Max easily outlasting Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra in daily use. What makes this even more interesting is that the test was done on the UK variant of the device, which still has a physical SIM slot instead of the eSIM-only design Apple uses in the North American models. Apple says the eSIM iPhone 17 Pro carries a slightly bigger battery, which means that it could squeeze even more battery life.
The iPhone 17 Pro Max lasted 13 hours before shutting down, compared to 12 hours and 15 minutes on the iPhone 16 Pro Max. It may sound like just 45 extra minutes, but that difference is enough to get you home without the anxiety of your phone switching off. Even last year’s 16 Pro Max managed to beat the Galaxy S25 Ultra at 11 hours and 50 minutes, which shows just how far ahead Apple has pulled this year.
The smaller iPhones were also tested, and the results weren’t as flattering, with the iPhone Air giving up first at just 7 hours and 18 minutes, which really shows how much the ultra-thin design limits battery life. The regular iPhone 17 did a little better, lasting around three hours longer at 10 hours and 28 minutes, while the iPhone 17 Pro pushed slightly further at 10 hours and 48 minutes, thanks to the chip efficiency and improved thermals. You can check out the video below for more details on the battery life comparison.
Instead of sticking to lab numbers of controlled video playback, the test ran the phones through tasks people actually do, including scrolling social apps, switching between Slack and other productivity tools, recording video, and streaming music. This mixture of tasks is a lot tougher on a battery than just playing back video, which explains why Apple’s official claim of 35 hours of streaming feels so unreal. Seeing the Pro Max lasting for 13 hours in that kind of workload makes the result much more relevant to real-world scenarios.
So far, the iPhone 17 Pro Max is the king of battery life, but moving forward, we believe that Samsung will power the forthcoming Galaxy S26 Ultra with its custom Exynos 2600 chip based on 2nm architecture, which will bring major efficiency gains to boost battery life.
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