iPhone XS and XS Max proven to have undersized batteries

[RyuHimora]

Forbes: Apple's New iPhones Have An Unfixable Problem

 

Original Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF6-eLoNwZQ

 

Phonebuff has performed an extremely meticulous battery life test between the newest iPhones and the Galaxy Note 9 which produced some surprising results. The test involved using sensors to make sure the screen brightness and volume levels were set exactly the same, as well as a robotic arm to perfectly replicate navigation on both phones. The results showed that although the Note 9 only has a 20% bigger battery than the XS Max, it was still at 37% charge when the iPhone ran out. The article points out that the Snapdragon 845 is not a very efficient SoC, and Apple is claiming iOS 12 is their "most efficient" OS to date. The problem would be even worse on the regular XS.

 

My thoughts:

This seems quite fishy to me on Apple's part, given that this is the biggest battery they've ever put in a phone and there's usually at least some minimum to battery performance on iPhones, even when they had two different sources for the SoCs. Seems to me like Apple's "most efficient OS" must be doing a lot of stuff in the background now, whether you want it to or not, and good luck turning that off without jailbreaking. 

[GoldenLag]

So Note 9 is still the best phone as long as you arent hit by the Samsung battery eating bug that Linus is hit by and Kirinodere on twitter among others.

 

also dont mind not the greatest OS updates. 

[BrinkGG]

7 minutes ago, RyuHimora said:

Forbes: Apple's New iPhones Have An Unfixable Problem

 

Original Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF6-eLoNwZQ

 

Phonebuff has performed an extremely meticulous battery life test between the newest iPhones and the Galaxy Note 9 which produced some surprising results. The test involved using sensors to make sure the screen brightness and volume levels were set exactly the same, as well as a robotic arm to perfectly replicate navigation on both phones. The results showed that although the Note 9 only has a 20% bigger battery than the XS Max, it was still at 37% charge when the iPhone ran out. The article points out that the Snapdragon 845 is not a very efficient SoC, and Apple is claiming iOS 12 is their "most efficient" OS to date. The problem was even worse on the regular XS.

 

My thoughts:

This seems quite fishy to me on Apple's part, given that this is the biggest battery they've ever put in a phone and there's usually at least some minimum to battery performance on iPhones, even when they had two different sources for the SoCs. Seems to me like Apple's "most efficient OS" must be doing a lot of stuff in the background now, whether you want it to or not, and good luck turning that off without jailbreaking. 

*How I read this* 

Apple still doesn't know how to put proper hardware in their devices... Go figure. 

It's not like they made a phone that bent cause they didn't properly reinforce the frame...

Or a macbook pro that randomly sent 18v to the CPU and killed the iGPU on it, killing the CPU in the process.

OR an iPhone without a headphone jack. Old argument but still. 

Or an iMac with thermal limits so a vega 56 preforms like an RX580

Or a macbook pro with an i9, but it's thermally limited so it performs about the same as an i7.

 

I could go on... 

[RyuHimora]

1 minute ago, Brink2Three said:

Or a macbook pro with an i9, but it's thermally limited so it performs about the same as an i7.

Or worse, depending on which Macbook i7 you choose

[BrinkGG]

Just now, RyuHimora said:

Or worse, depending on which Macbook i7 you choose

Fair. 

My 2015 i7 is still about as powerful as the new i9s... 

[dizmo]

I don't really think it's an undersized battery issue, it's likely the size of battery they wanted. They have weight and phone size targets they want to hit.

Just because it doesn't match another companies flagship doesn't mean it didn't meet the targets they set out for themselves. "Good enough" is a very real target.

[19_blackie_73]

every samsung phone i owned was horrendous at battery life after a while...
so I doubt that the advantage would be neglegible after short amount of time

 

[RyuHimora]

17 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I don't really think it's an undersized battery issue, it's likely the size of battery they wanted. They have weight and phone size targets they want to hit.

Just because it doesn't match another companies flagship doesn't mean it didn't meet the targets they set out for themselves. "Good enough" is a very real target.

My counterpoint is that Apple markets iPhones as being a no compromise alternative to the competition, but with the XS Max vs Note 9, you're getting a few hours less battery life and half the storage for $100 more in the base price. That is a significant compromise against the Note 9, and draws into question what exactly the 7nm Bionic chip and "improvements" in iOS 12 are actually doing. "Good enough" for apple doesn't meet it's good enough for the customer.

[BigDamn]

iPhone has poor battery life, always has and always will. My Note 4 rocked some great battery life until the battery was too worn down (after 3.5 years of good use). My Note 8 lasts me all day easily. Never had the "battery eating bug".

[Bigbootyjudy]

8 minutes ago, 19_blackie_73 said:

every samsung phone i owned was horrendous at battery life after a while...
so I doubt that the advantage would be neglegible after short amount of time

This could be due to the installation of new apps that run in the background and suck battery life so usually people's experience differs

[Devin92]

2 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Going through cycles quicker means the battery deteriorates faster. Pretty convenient for Apple when they can easily convince their customers to buy a whole new phone.

This is exactly what i believe as well. Look at pixels, iphones, and galaxy s lines. They all have pretty average battery life.

But then why is the note line has such a good battery life then? does samsung go easy on customer this time? There must be a catch that make note 9 wont last very long either.

Can anyone confirm if Huawei's phone get super laggy after 1-2 year? Cuz i was thinking may be thats how Huawei convince ppl to upgrade, since they include a 4000mah battery.

[DrMacintosh]

The iPhone Xs and Xs Max have an advertised battery size that they ship with and so does the Note 9. A battery being “undersized” is a matter of opinion. 

 

This isnt tech news, it’s well documented fact. 

[vetali]

This isn't really surprising. Back at WWDC they directly said that iOS 12 would ramp up CPU speeds much more aggressively to make the OS quicker. Like mentioned, the snapdragon SoC isn't efficient and Samsung likely has provisions in place to ramp up the speeds slower to conserve battery life. Constantly navigating my iphone 8 on iOS 12 has wrecked my battery life compared to iOS 11. Screen off and standby times are still great. As I expected with iOS 12

[rcmaehl]

1 hour ago, RyuHimora said:

Forbes: Apple's New iPhones Have An Unfixable Problem

They run iOS?

[Dabombinable]

8 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

The iPhone Xs and Xs Max have an advertised battery size that they ship with and so does the Note 9. A battery being “undersized” is a matter of opinion. 

 

This isnt tech news, it’s well documented fact. 

Compared to directly competing phones in the same price bracket, the battery really is.

[Spotty]

1 hour ago, RyuHimora said:

Phonebuff has performed an extremely meticulous battery life test between the newest iPhones and the Galaxy Note 9 which produced some surprising results. The test involved using sensors to make sure the screen brightness and volume levels were set exactly the same, as well as a robotic arm to perfectly replicate navigation on both phones. The results showed that although the Note 9 only has a 20% bigger battery than the XS Max, it was still at 37% charge when the iPhone ran out. The article points out that the Snapdragon 845 is not a very efficient SoC, and Apple is claiming iOS 12 is their "most efficient" OS to date. The problem would be even worse on the regular XS.

Quote

Apple's New iPhones Have An Unfixable Problem

 

To me it just sounds as if they're comparing the two phones and determining which has the best battery life. Just because a different model of phone has better battery life, does not mean there is an actual fault in the Apple device. It could just mean that the other device is simply better in that regard.

 

If the Apple performed better in the test and the Samsung device lost, would there be a news article for "Samsung proven to have undersized batteries" Or "Samsung's new phone has an unfixable problem"? I doubt it. More likely the article would be "Apple's new iPhone has the best battery life", simply because news articles about new Apple products - good or bad - generate lots of clicks and ad revenue.

[AlTech]

Wait wat. The Snapdragon 845 is an efficient SOC. The only possible issue I could have with it (or Exynos CPUs at this point) is how often the firmware makes the low power cluster run and how often the high performance cluster is turned on. And how often both are turned on simulatenously.

[Curufinwe_wins]

22 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

The iPhone Xs and Xs Max have an advertised battery size that they ship with and so does the Note 9. A battery being “undersized” is a matter of opinion. 

 

This isnt tech news, it’s well documented fact. 

I agree with this. 100%

 

Side note, if you remember our conversation about the antenna concerns I have... floatplane just got the 'feedback video on the iphone xs/max' and while it wasn't in the video itself, another LMG employee commented to me this. Of course, as we discussed, it isn't about intel v qualcomm at all, but yeah. 

 

17 hours ago, nicklmg said:

I'm running XS Max and compared to 8+ the signal for both WiFi and cellular is NOTICEABLY worse, to the point that I've completely dropped service in the office a couple times. Didn't imagine that Intel vs Qualcomm would make that much of a difference, but... it's there.

[AlTech]

Also, I just realized they didn't test the Exynos Note 9 as well which would be interesting to see compared to the Snapdragon and compared to the iPhone XS Max.

[Curufinwe_wins]

Just now, AluminiumTech said:

Also, I just realized they didn't test the Exynos Note 9 as well which would be interesting to see compared to the Snapdragon and compared to the iPhone XS Max.

At release the exynos of this generation is bad. really bad. The scheduler is f'd up to hell. But maybe it's better now. I honestly don't know.

 

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12620/improving-the-exynos-9810-galaxy-s9-part-2

[19_blackie_73]

51 minutes ago, Bigbootyjudy said:

This could be due to the installation of new apps that run in the background and suck battery life so usually people's experience differs

returned it to factory reset on all phones, same issue
And even if my phone is fully loaded with all my apps, I don't have more than 10

[AlTech]

Just now, Curufinwe_wins said:

At release the exynos of this generation is bad. really bad. The scheduler is f'd up to hell. But maybe it's better now. I honestly don't know.

 

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12620/improving-the-exynos-9810-galaxy-s9-part-2

Oooof.

 

I think it's gotten better since then cos I've heard no complaints about batteries on Exynos S9 and Note 9 from any friends.

[GoldenLag]

1 hour ago, 19_blackie_73 said:

every samsung phone i owned was horrendous at battery life after a while...
so I doubt that the advantage would be neglegible after short amount of time

 

probably battery eating bug....... its been the bane that made a lot of people swap.

 

39 minutes ago, Devin92 said:

Can anyone confirm if Huawei's phone get super laggy after 1-2 year? Cuz i was thinking may be thats how Huawei convince ppl to upgrade, since they include a 4000mah battery.

Mate 9 Pro here. had it for a year and a half at this point, nothing to report so far (i use it heavily as i have no friends). their SOCs arent very good in terms of power efficiency, could be the reason behind the very large battery.

[dizmo]

52 minutes ago, RyuHimora said:

My counterpoint is that Apple markets iPhones as being a no compromise alternative to the competition, but with the XS Max vs Note 9, you're getting a few hours less battery life and half the storage for $100 more in the base price. That is a significant compromise against the Note 9, and draws into question what exactly the 7nm Bionic chip and "improvements" in iOS 12 are actually doing. "Good enough" for apple doesn't meet it's good enough for the customer.

I don't think they've ever marketed themselves like that. If you're in the Apple ecosystem, you're in their ecosystem and you're unlikely to change to something else. A few hours less battery life is hardly going to be a reason for people to jump ship. Yes, you might give up some battery life, but that's a small issue that most will probably overlook. You know what phone absolutely destroys both of the ones in question for battery life? My Zenfone 3 Zoom. That doesn't mean it's a better device, or better for everyone. You know what they increased by a substantial margin? The screen. It's almost an inch bigger than the outgoing model. That's where a lot of that spent battery life is going. It's not rocket science, is it?

 

TL;DR: You can't base a device off of a single metric, and sales will show that it's users simply don't care if it gets a little less battery life than another device.

[AnonymousGuy]

The XS Max still survived 7 hours of constant usage, so that means it'll easily survive a full day of normal usage.

 

Let the Note 9 sit for a few months of having apps installed and running in the background and shit and watch it sink like a rock.  That's always been Android's problem: it sucks when you actually live with it.