How long does the iPhone 6 battery last? Here's what Anthony Caruana found using the phone for a day.
Apple's new iPhone 6 has hit the market with a larger battery than its predecessor. So what sort of battery life have we found so far?
The iPhone 6's Lithium Polymer battery is rated at 1810 mAH - that's 270 mAh more than the iPhone 5s. But the new iPhone boasts a larger and therefore more power hungry, display, NFC and new wireless radios.
Here's what we found over a 24-hour period.
Time |
Activity |
Charge (%) |
7:00 AM |
We used the iPhone 6 as an alarm clock. It was on charge overnight |
100 |
8:40 AM |
Checked some email over breakfast and then completed a 36 minute conference call using the iPhone 6 as a speakerphone |
94 |
8:45 AM |
5 minute call on speakerphone |
92 |
8:51 AM |
6 minute call using the iPhone 6 as a regular handset |
91 |
9:50 AM |
Connected the iPhone 6 to a computer for a few minutes to sync some content resulting in some recharging of the battery |
95 |
10:30 AM |
iPhone 6 was sitting idle, receiving notifications while sitting on the desk in the office |
95 |
11:10 AM |
We made a 10-minute call using Apple's new Continuity feature which allowed us to use our Mac (running a pre-release version of Apple's new operating system, called Yosemite) as a remote speaker phone |
91 |
12:15 PM |
We drove to a local café for a meeting and then did some random web browsing, checking email and looked at Facebook. This was our first time out for the day using 4G rather than WiFi. The iPhone was also connected, via Bluetooth, to the car's integrated audio system. |
83 |
2:25 PM |
Back in the office, with the iPhone 6 on WiFi collecting notifications and messages in the background |
74 |
3:10 PM |
Sitting idle on the desk while we worked. We headed out at about 5:00 PM for some personal commitments |
72 |
7:00 PM |
Over the next couple of hours, we were out and made several calls using our car's Bluetooth iPhone integration. All up, we were on the phone for 25 minutes over that period |
45 |
8:40 PM |
Out for dinner, used a little bit of social media and sent a few SMS messages |
35 |
10:30 PM |
Once we were home, we did some web browsing and caught up on a few emails and went to bed |
19 |
7:00 AM |
The next morning, we checked the battery level and found it was down to 6% even though the phone had been idle for about nine hours |
6 |
Based on our usage patterns, we can see how the iPhone 6 would get us through a typical day. It's worth noting that we didn’t use the GPS for navigation - a notoriously power hungry application. But, when we use this in the car, we always connect to a power source.