Apple iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus side by side.
Apple’s latest iPhones go on sale this Friday. But one of the most important details, the battery capacity, has just become available. According to MacRumors, the new iPhones’ battery capacities have been revealed by a Chinese regulatory database. And the figures may surprise you.
First of all, only two of the iPhones have bigger capacity batteries than the phone that came before, while one has a smaller battery. The fourth phone is the iPhone 14 Plus, which had no predecessor to compare it to.
Let’s start with the good news. Both the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro have bigger batteries this time around.
Where the iPhone 13 has a 3,227mAh battery, the iPhone 14 has a 3,279mAh cell. Similarly, there’s a slightly bigger upgrade on the smaller Pro phone. The iPhone 14 Pro battery was 3,095mAh, and the iPhone 14 Pro is 3,200mAh.
Then there’s the Max: while the iPhone 13 Pro Max had a 4,352mAh battery, the new iPhone 14 Pro Max takes this down, very slightly, to 4,323mAh.
Despite this, all three of the iPhones are credited on Apple’s website with longer offline video playback than their 2021 equivalents. So, in other words, the changes in capacity don’t seem to be doing any harm, even in the case of the smaller Pro Max battery.
Then there’s the iPhone 14 Plus, due on October 7. This has no predecessor to compare it to (it is in no way comparable to the iPhone 13 mini) so we must rely on two other details.
First, the capacity is 4,325mAh which, you’ll notice, is the biggest number here. So, it’s the biggest battery. And then there’s what Apple says, which is, that it’s “our longest battery life ever”.
Here’s the other big surprise: given that the iPhone 14 Pro Max costs $200 more than the iPhone 14 Plus, wouldn’t you have expected Apple to ensure the priciest phone has the best battery life?
Well, don’t give up on the Pro Max. It still outlasts the Plus in one way, that offline video playback. While the iPhone 14 Plus manages a huge 26 hours, it’s 29 hours for the iPhone 14 Pro Max. Which is a lot of video watching.
The bottom line is that if these iPhones live up to their promise, battery life will be strong across the board. Stay tuned for real-world testing.
