Here's How Big the iPhone 13's Battery Really Is

We just got a first look at the size of the iPhone 13s battery thanks to a product information leaflet posted by Apple on hazardous material information and feedback company Chemtrec's website (via 9to5Mac). The document shows that the batteries in iPhones have gotten significantly larger over the past year — an average of 13 percent larger — and that the 13 Pro Max's battery is becoming comparable to devices like the Nintendo Switch.

In the document, the battery size is stated in watt-hours instead of the more traditional milliamp hours. Even though most phone makers size batteries in milliamp hours, they're often less accurate and it's harder to compare devices, so we prefer watt-hours. According to the document, here are the battery sizes for newer phones and previous-gen models from Apple:

Apple says it provides this information to Chemtrec to help carriers comply, so the information comes directly from the source.

12 and 12 PRO had the same size battery, but 13 and 13 PRO don't seem to have

A few things stand out in the chart. The size has obviously increased significantly across the board, and a strange change occurs from year to year: the 12 and 12 Pro used to have the same size battery, but now the 13 Pro's battery actually compares to the 13's. is small. I am small The phones are of similar physical size, and the Pro is packing a higher refresh rate screen, an additional GPU core, and more cameras, so it makes sense that there's less room for the battery.

Apple made each model slightly thicker and heavier than its predecessor. With this iPhone 13 lineup, the company makes the same tradeoff as it did with the 11: bigger phones with better batteries (a move that garnered a good amount of praise).

As a few points of comparison, here are the rated efficiencies we were able to find for other phones and devices by consulting iFixit's teardown:

Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra: 18.84Wh

Google Pixel 5: 15.48Wh

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra: 16.96Wh

Nintendo Switch: 16Wh

2020 iPad Air: 28.93Wh (Same capacity mentioned in Camtrac document)

Going by the numbers found in the document, the 13 Pro Max's 13.75Wh battery represents a healthy fraction of what you'll find in some laptop batteries. That's 71 percent of the capacity of my ThinkPad T480's main battery (rated for 23.48Wh), and a little over 33 percent of the MacBook Air's all-day 49.9 watt-hour battery. Plus, it's bigger than the Switch's battery, and that thing can run Breath of the Wild for a few hours.

Given that phone processors are changing and displays are getting faster, it's hard to say how much real-world battery life you can get from these battery size increases. In its presentation, Apple said the new batteries will last "1.5 hours into your day" for the iPhone 13 Mini and iPhone 13 Pro, and 2.5 hours later for the iPhone 13 and 13 Pro Max. By Apple's measurements, if your iPhone 12 taps at 9:30 p.m., it expects the iPhone 13 to make it to midnight.

It's not a particularly meaningful metric without context (though according to Apple, the iPhone 13 will get 4 hours more streamed video playback than its predecessor, and the 13 Pro Max will get 13 more), so we'll have to wait. . Will see how the phones hold up for real-life use and how they perform in the side-by-side rundown tests. However, Apple has made the battery a selling point for these phones, so it's in the company's best interest to back it up with some impressive numbers.