A YouTuber put all iPhone 17 models head-to-head in an ultimate battery test.
Apple promised that the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max would deliver a massive leap forward in battery life, but sometimes the difference isn't easy to spot. And while there are definitely steps you can take to keep your battery healthy and extend its lifespan, some phones simply come with better batteries right out of the box.
YouTuber Mrwhosetheboss (real name Arun Maini) decided to put that claim to the test by seeing how the new iPhone 17 lineup really holds up against last year's models and a top Android competitor.
In his experiment, Maini tested the iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone Air, and iPhone 17 alongside last year's iPhone 16 Pro Max, iPhone 16, and Samsung's Galaxy S25 Ultra.
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To keep things fair, he charged all devices to 100%, used them exactly as he would during a normal day, kept them in a controlled 16-degree room, and updated each one to the latest software. Going in, he predicted the iPhone 17 would take the crown, but the results surprised him.
Maini kicked things off by watching YouTube Shorts for the first hour before switching to Slack, where both the iPhone 17 Pro Max and iPhone 16 Pro Max were depleting the slowest at 97%.
Interestingly, he pointed out that Apple is increasingly pushing eSIM-only phones, especially in the US, which allows for 'larger battery capacity' since there's no physical SIM card tray taking up space. The difference is huge, too, with a 5.5% larger capacity in the 17 Pro Max and an insane 7% bigger in the 17 Pro.
The content creator then moved on to some 'lunchtime Instagram doomscrolling', during which the iPhone Air's battery dropped the fastest, reaching 82%. Meanwhile, the leaders - iPhone 17 Pro Max and 16 Pro Max - remained neck and neck.
After three and a half hours, Maini noted that the iPhone 17 wasn't performing much better than the iPhone 16, despite a full year's worth of supposed improvements.
Several more hours of scrolling on X, opening Pokémon booster packs, recording 4K video at 60fps and streaming Spotify, the iPhone Air was the first to give in at 7 hours and 18 minutes.
"Apple said that this phone [Air] should have the same battery life as the iPhone 16 Pro," he said, which clearly wasn't the case.
Later in the video, Maini explained: "I don't think that's terrible battery life, it's about the upper end of what I expected given how thin the thing is.
"It just really makes it tangible how much you are giving up to have a thin phone."
Then, the rest of the dominoes started falling. The iPhone 16 died just under 10 hours, then the iPhone 17 (10h 28m), and the iPhone 17 Pro (10 hour 48m).
The top three spots went to the Samsung S25 Ultra at 11 hours 58 minutes, the iPhone 16 Pro Max at 12 hours 15 minutes, and the ultimate winner, the iPhone 17 Pro Max, at 13 hours.
"The battery life you get is not really about whether you go Pro or not. It's really just what size of phone you get," Maini concluded.