AfterDawn: Tech news

Report: Apple has overestimated battery life, talk time drastically lower than marketed

Written by Matti Robinson @ 06 May 2019 12:18

Report: Apple has overestimated battery life, talk time drastically lower than marketed People love their iPhones. Not as much as they used to, but people still love their iPhones.
One of the things that they usually don't like, however, is the battery life. Controversies like the #batterygate didn't do much to help Apple's case either.

'Member? Apple admitted that it is throttling older phones so they could keep it lasting longer because of degraded batteries. Not that it is necessarily a bad thing, but they didn't tell the users about it, until it was exposed and they had to.

Well, there's more bad news about Apple's battery practices. According to a British customer advocacy group Which?, as covered by Business Insider, Apple has been fooling customers with the battery life figures.

As they tested iPhones, a total of nine different models, and how long you could actually use them as a phone, the results were not even close to what Apple claims.



Among the models the new iPhone XR was the worst offender. Apple promises 25 hours of talk time but it only managed 16.5 hours. Apple is giving the phone more than 50% more talk time than it can actually manage.

Apple has responded that they test the devices' battery life rigorously to meet their claims, and that their battery life figures reflect the intelligent power management used to maximize battery life.

Unfortunately there isn't really a lot of details how Which? performed these tests, so there is no mention whether this could be due to not including some of the power saving features. This is why Apple says they can't verify and compare the results with theirs.

However, Which? also tested phones by Samsung, Sony, Nokia, and HTC. The first three passed their estimates, and HTC only overestimated their talk time by an average of 5%.

While this isn't a conclusive test, and probably not scientific at all, there seems to be a reason to worry about false marketing by Apple. Perhaps there's reason to revisit those iPhone XR reviews that praised its battery life?

Previous Next  
Comments have been disabled for this article.

Latest news

Sony suspends memory card sales because memory chips are simply not available Sony suspends memory card sales because memory chips are simply not available (28 Mar 2026 6:49)
Sony has announced that it is temporarily suspending the sale of memory cards used in mobile phones and digital cameras, among other things. The company states that the reason is problems with the availability of memory chips.
Austria plans to ban social media for under 14 year olds Austria plans to ban social media for under 14 year olds (28 Mar 2026 6:17)
Austria is planning to ban social media for children under 14. The reform aims to protect children from harmful effects and addictions, but at the same time, it is problematic from a privacy perspective.
TP-Link urges users to update their routers - several vulnerabilities patched TP-Link urges users to update their routers - several vulnerabilities patched (26 Mar 2026 1:56)
Serious security vulnerabilities have been discovered in several TP-Link router models, for which patches were released at the end of March 2026. The company urges users to update their router software immediately.
Google: The feared Q-Day is now expected to happen in 2029 Google: The feared Q-Day is now expected to happen in 2029 (25 Mar 2026 4:32)
Google has advanced its estimate of when current forms of encryption will become insecure. The moment is called Q-Day, or Quantum Day, when the computational power of quantum computers will be sufficient to break currently used encryptions.
OpenAI shuts down its AI video service Sora OpenAI shuts down its AI video service Sora (24 Mar 2026 6:28)
OpenAI has decided to shut down Sora, its AI video creator, just months after its release. The decision is due to issues such as copyright problems and the deepfake phenomenon.

News archive