iPhone 17 battery life results are in — how do the new iPhones compare to other flagships?

Battery life is arguably the most important thing a phone can offer, far more than high performance, AI features, or even high-quality cameras. Fortunately for iPhone users, it seems that the days of mediocre battery life are long over — and the iPhone 17 is no exception to that trend.

We put the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max and iPhone Air through the usual Tom's Guide battery test to see just how long their batteries would last. This process involves continually surfing the web over 5G, with the screens set to 150 nits of brightness.

Naturally, the iPhone 17 Pro Max proved to be the best of the bunch, thanks to its super-sized new battery, while the ultra-thin iPhone Air felt a little disappointing. The iPhone 17 Pro also proved capable enough to land a spot on our best phone battery life page.

But how much better are the batteries on the iPhone 17 series? Here's how they stack up against the longest-lasting phones and their predecessors in the iPhone 16 series.

iPhone 17 battery life results: All four models compared

iPhone 17 battery life

The iPhone 17 came in with 12 hours and 47 minutes of battery life during testing, which is only marginally better than the iPhone 16's 12 hours and 43 minutes. That's disappointing to see, considering how the iPhone 17 has a slightly larger 3,692 mAh battery compared to the 16's 3,561 mAh. That's a 3.7% increase, which accounted for just 4 extra minutes of overall runtime.

Sadly, this time means that the iPhone 17 is behind the likes of the Galaxy S25 (15 hours 43 minutes) and the Google Pixel 10 (13 hours 13 minutes). Considering Google's battery life has been historically rather weak and has shown few major gains this year, it's quite a blow for the iPhone.

iPhone Air battery life

Comparing the iPhone Air to the iPhone 16 Plus wouldn't be fair, on account of the 16 Plus being bigger, thicker, and offers more than 1,500 extra milliamp hours of battery capacity. Instead, it's more prudent to compare the new ultra-thin iPhone to the other ultra-thin flagship that arrived this year: The Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge.

With a recorded battery life of 12 hours and 2 minutes, the iPhone Air is the weakest of all the new iPhones and noticeably behind the Galaxy S25 Edge's 12 hours and 38 minutes battery life. However, it's worth noting that the Air does have considerably less battery capacity, with an estimated 3,149 mAh to the Edge's 3,900 mAh.

So had Apple added a bit more thickness and a larger battery, this conversation might have been very different.

iPhone 17 Pro battery life

Pro iPhones have historically been quite weak compared to the larger Pro Max models, and that hasn't changed this year. The iPhone 17 Pro's 15 hours and 32 minutes of battery life is about two hand a half hours less than the Max. But that's not to say this isn't a bad score, and it is a huge improvement over the 14 hours 7 minutes of battery life of the iPhone 16 Pro — and enough to earn the 17 Pro a spot on our best phone battery life page.

Samsung is still well ahead, with the Galaxy S25 Plus coming in at 16 hours and 55 minutes of battery life. However, Google has now been left in the dust, as the Pixel 10 Pro only managed 13 hours and 43 minutes of battery life under the same testing conditions.

iPhone 17 Pro Max battery life

The iPhone 17 Pro Max is still the undisputed king of iPhone battery life, with an overall time of 17 hours and 54 minutes. That's a fair jump over the iPhone 16 Pro Max's 17 hours and 17 minutes, though the change isn't nearly as impressive as we saw with the iPhone 17 Pro.

The 17 Pro Max is higher than the Galaxy S25 Ultra, which clocked in at 17 hours and 14 minutes, as well as the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL (14 hours and 20 minutes). Sadly, it doesn't even come close to matching the OnePlus 13's incredible 19 hours and 45 minutes of battery life.

Considering the OnePlus 13 is almost a year old, and the OnePlus 15 will be arriving fairly soon, that gap is only likely to get wider in the coming months.

Bottom line

If you want a new iPhone and want to get the model with the best battery life, then the iPhone 17 Pro Max is the obvious one to choose. It may not be the longest-lasting phone overall, but being one of the top 5 is still a pretty impressive achievement for Apple.

That said, the iPhone 17 Pro could offer a good amount of battery life without having to spend quite as much money. Not to mention the fact that it has a more compact design, and the feature set on both phones is mostly identical.

Of course, if you have your heart set on the iPhone 17 or iPhone Air, then we should point out that the battery life isn't terrible. It's just nowhere near as good as we'd like, and you may need some help to get you through the day comfortably — especially with the Air. Grab one of the best portable chargers, or pick up one of Apple's new Air-exclusive MagSafe battery packs.

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