It was already clear that the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro would lose battery faster when connected to 5G networks compared to 4G, but we did not know how much. Well now we do, thanks to Tom’s Guide and its battery test: run a browser script at 150 nits and load a new web page at 30 second intervals.
Under those conditions, the iPhone 12 lasted 8:25 hours on 5G and 10:23 hours on 4G, which is a difference of around 20%. The iPhone 12 Pro performed slightly better: 9:06 hours on 5G and 11:24 hours on LTE, again around 20% better. Compared to their respective 4G predecessors, the iPhone 12 lasted 53 minutes less than the iPhone 11, while the iPhone 12 Pro lasted exactly one hour longer than the iPhone 11 Pro.
The Galaxy S20 and S20 + with their larger 4,000 mAh and 4,500 mAh batteries outperformed the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro when tested at 60Hz, but lasted less than the pair of iPhones when they ran the 5G navigation test at their refresh rate. higher than 120Hz. The Google Pixel 5 and OnePlus 8T outperformed the iPhone 12 duo even at their highest refresh settings (90Hz and 120Hz, respectively).
Table courtesy of Tom’s Guide
The iPhone 12 and 12 Pro are in the middle of Apple’s new line of iPhones in terms of battery capacity. It would be more interesting to see how the smaller iPhone 12 mini and larger iPhone 12 Pro Max work.
It’s also worth noting that the iPhone 12 series would by default judge whether to use 5G or 4G, depending on what you’re doing. Streaming music while the screen is off is a scenario where the phone would by default use LTE as a spare battery.
