Apple iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro Max battery life and charging speed to expect
Apple is expected to equip the iPhone 15 line with larger batteries and new USB-C port, which could contribute to both longer iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro battery life, as well as faster charging.
Apple iPhone 15 series: expected battery capacity
The Apple iPhone 15 line is rumored to get a capacity boost of between 12% for the iPhone 15 Pro Max, whose predecessor has the largest battery on any iPhone to begin with, to 18% for the iPhone 15.
Improved “stacked” batter production method similar to what is used in electric vehicles, as well as slightly thicker handsets could be the design enhancements that are reportedly allowing for the following changes in the iPhone 15 line’s overall battery capacity.
Apple iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro Max battery life to expect
If the battery size increase rumor materializes, we can expect at least the correspondent increase in the battery life of the handsets. A more efficient Apple A17 processor, as well as a newer OLED display generation would probably add to the mere battery size increase gains.
Even if the iPhone 15 series’ battery life is only affected by the larger batteries, we can expect the following increase in official Apple iPhone 15 battery endurance numbers:
Will the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro Max have longer battery life?
As can be seen from our battery capacity increase extrapolation table above, for the iPhone 15 Pro Max and especially the iPhone 15 Apple is expected to list much longer battery life than that of their predecessors.
It depends on the use case, though, as when we put the iPhone 14 series through our own demanding battery life tests, they only managed to score an hour or so of longer battery life compared to their predecessors in our video streaming and web browsing tests.
| Video Streaming (hours)Higher is better | Apple iPhone 14 8h 35 min Apple iPhone 13 8h 15 min Apple iPhone 14 Pro 9h 14 min Apple iPhone 13 Pro 8h 26 min Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max 11h Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max 10h 23 min |
| Web Browsing (hours)Higher is better | Apple iPhone 14 15h 23 min Apple iPhone 13 13h 43 min Apple iPhone 14 Pro 16h 18 min Apple iPhone 13 Pro 14h 44 min Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max 19h 5 min Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max 18h 52 min |
| 3D Gaming (hours)Higher is better | Apple iPhone 14 6h 44 min Apple iPhone 13 7h 28 min Apple iPhone 14 Pro 5h 38 min Apple iPhone 13 Pro 8h 5 min Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max 8h 39 min Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max 10h 29 min |
On the other hand, the battery capacity increase between the iPhone 15 series and older iPhones is expected to be more significant, plus they would brandish more efficient hardware components, so we’d wager to guess a much larger battery life gap in favor of the iPhone 15 line this year.
Will the iPhone 15 come with USB-C port?
Yes, serious analysts are now of the opinion that all the phones in Apple’s 2023 line – the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and the iPhone 15 Pro Max – will come with a modern USB-C port with Power Delivery capabilities, rather than the aging Lightning port.
Apple iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro Max charging speeds to expect
- 30 minutes to 50%
- 90 minutes to full charge
With the advent of the USB-C port on the iPhone 15 series, Apple will have all the infrastructure for faster charging in place. Unfortunately, Apple will reportedly pace itself and leave any significant charging speed upgrades for the next iPhone iterations, as is its habit in incremental progress.
The use of USB-C, however, will allow it to officially increase the 20W charging speed of the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max to the higher 27W-29W charging peak that their predecessors can now score with one of the more powerful Apple chargers anyway.
Therefore, the iPhone 15 models are still expected to take 30 minutes to get up to 50% when charged using Apple’s standard charger and cable. The eventual faster charging of the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max will be offset by their larger batteries, too, so charging the iPhone 15 series would probably still take about an hour and a half, while most Androids are now at 3x faster charging speeds.
What charger will iPhone 15 use?
- 20W and 30W Apple chargers
Since the iPhone 15 series charging speeds are expected to remain unchanged, Apple’s official 20W and 30W chargers will likely remain standard for topping them up. As for wireless, the slow 15W MagSafe and 7,5W Qi charging sans cable is likely to stay as well.