Real-world testing shows using the display outside quickly drains the battery.
Earlier this month, Google launched the Pixel 7 line of smartphones. And before they’re even in customers’ hands, there’s already a potential battery-life issue. Adam Conway over at XDA Developers noticed his Pixel 7 Pro review unit consumed power much faster when used at higher brightness, especially outdoors.
While it’s not a shock that a phone consumes more power when competing with the sun, Conway reported that his Pixel 7 Pro’s battery level dropped 10% in 15 minutes when he stepped outside for a coffee break. After surveying the rest of the XDA team, Conway discovered it wasn’t an isolated problem. So, with the help of display analyst Dylan Raga, Conway began investigating the mystery of the Pixel 7 Pro display battery drain.
After comparing power consumption readings from the Pixel 7 Pro against Google Pixel 6 Pro data, Conway and Raga realized that both devices seem to excessively drain power when their brightness is cranked—the Pixel 7 Pro’s odd battery life may be a symptom of a long-standing issue. Conway reached out to other journalists that received review units from Google and found the problem to be widespread.
To sum up the problem, according to XDA, if your Pixel 7 Pro display is set to full manual brightness, it may be using almost half of the device’s maximum chipset power. That would leave you about three hours of battery life on a full charge. And that’s only accounting for the display and chipset. All the other components in the Pixel 7 Pro draw power too. So, it’s anybody’s guess how much battery life anybody can expect from the device in real-world usage scenarios.
Conway hasn’t concluded his testing yet and cautions that Google could fix the problem with a software update. However, he cautions that if you’re still on the fence about buying a Pixel 7 Pro, you hold off on that big purchase until the battery-life issue resolves.
Source: XDA Developers
