There’s a lot to do when reviewing a phone. We perform many lab tests to measure performance and display quality. I test every new feature using the camera in the real world and see how it performs compared to the best camera phones. Our testers also run an in-house developed battery test to see how long your handset lasts on a single charge. And the initial results for the iPhone 16 Pro Max were so long that the rest of the review was delayed.
In case you’re not sure how to test a phone’s durability, we run Tom’s Guide battery tests on every phone we review. This includes surfing the web over 5G with 150 nits of screen brightness. If a particular device lasts for more than 14 hours, it ranks on the list of best cell phone battery life.
The initial run time for the iPhone 16 Pro Max was 18 hours and 6 minutes. This beats every other iPhone we tested and beats the iPhone 15 Pro Max by over 4 hours.
It was so good that I wondered if there was something wrong with it. So I ran the battery test again. And again. The results for the iPhone 16 Pro Max weren’t that impressive at 17:11 and 17:28, but when you average all three you get a very impressive 17 hours and 35 minutes. .
| iPhone 16 Pro Max | 17:35 |
| ASUS ROG Phone 8 Pro | 18:48 |
| One Plus 12R | 18:08 |
| Asus Zenfone 11 Ultra | 17:01 |
| galaxy s24 ultra | 16:45 |
| iPhone16 plus | 16:29 |
| galaxy s24 plus | 15:58 |
| motorola edge plus | 15:47 |
To be fair, there are other phones that last longer on a single charge. For example, the Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro gaming phone lasted a whopping 18:48, while the OnePlus 12R lasted an average of 18:08. But the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s runtime ranks a solid third overall among all recent phones we’ve tested.
Just to be clear, the latest Google Pixel 9 smartphone isn’t coming any time soon. The Pixel 9 Pro XL peaked at over 14 hours in a single test, but the best average time was 13.5 hours for the Pixel 9 Pro.
| Row 0 – Cell 0 | Battery size* | Battery life (hours: minutes) |
| iPhone16 | 3,561mAh | 12:43 |
| iPhone16 plus | 4674mAh | 16:29 |
| iPhone16 pro | 3582mAh | 14:07 |
| iPhone 16 Pro Max | 4685mAh | 17:35 |
If you want a bigger screen on a budget, it’s worth noting that the iPhone 16 Plus lasted 16:29 in Tom’s Guide’s battery test. That’s about an hour behind the iPhone 16 Pro Max, but it’s still a pretty impressive battery life test result.
So what about the regular iPhone 16 Pro? In our testing, the phone clocked in at 14 minutes and 07 seconds, which wasn’t great. So if you want the longest possible battery life on your iPhone, the Pro Max is the way to go. However, the iPhone 16 Pro also has other advantages, including a more compact size and a cheaper starting price. Please refer to the comparison between iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max to make your decision.
The bottom line is that the iPhone 16 Pro Max has very long battery life, even if our lab testers are forced to work overtime.
