The iPhone 15 Professional and iPhone 15 Professional Max each have unbelievable battery life. It’s roughly the identical because the iPhone 14 Professional and Professional Max from final 12 months (simply barely longer in our testing), however that makes them a number of the longest-lasting high-end smartphones you should purchase.
However the non-Professional iPhones usually have longer battery life. We all know that the upper refresh charge of 120Hz ProMotion shows can have a big impression on battery life which is one motive why Apple promotes the iPhone 15 Plus as having the longest battery life within the lineup.
So naturally I questioned: if you happen to stopped your iPhone 15 Professional from going as much as 120Hz, wouldn’t it make the battery last more? After a number of days of testing, I can affirm that it does assist, however not sufficient to be price it, with one exception: gaming.
Apple doesn’t present a method to disable ProMotion the iPhone Professional fashions. The show merely dynamically adjusts refresh charge from 1 to 120Hz making changes on the fly as decided by the system.
However you can use a setting in Accessibility to restrict refresh charge to 60Hz, which is able to forestall the show from ramping as much as these battery-draining excessive refresh charges. In fact, it additionally means you don’t get the graceful scrolling and animations of ProMotion, so that you’re giving up one of many key options for which you purchase a “Professional” iPhone. Maybe if the battery life is significantly better, it is going to be price it?
Foundry
To restrict your iPhone 15 Professional (or iPhone 14 Professional) to 60Hz, open Settings, select Accessibility, then select Movement. Scroll down and allow the choice that claims Restrict Body Price.
Does it make a distinction?
In fact, what I actually wish to know is whether or not or not this makes an actual distinction battery life. For those who might get an additional hour of screen-on time with Restrict Body Price enabled, it might be price giving up the additional smoothness for some customers.
I ran my customary battery benchmark on each the iPhone 15 Professional and iPhone 15 Professional Max with this setting enabled and disabled. This consists of working the Geekbench 4 battery life check with the show calibrated to 200 nits, with auto-brightness and True Tone disabled.
It seems to be like this setting does have an effect, albeit a minor one. In two exams per telephone, I constantly noticed a battery life enchancment of round 5 %. That one thing, but it surely’s not the type of change that makes you wish to surrender the 120Hz smoothness for.
It’s laborious to know what the refresh charge is through the Geekbench 4 check, which reveals a comparatively static display throughout the complete benchmark, so I attempted a number of different exams. I scrolled by way of Instagram and reddit constantly, with only a few pauses and the brightness cranked as much as about 70 %. After 20 minutes, the battery indicator nonetheless learn 100%. After half-hour, nonetheless 100%. Someplace between the 30 and 35 minute mark, the battery meter lastly ticked all the way down to 99.
That outcome was in step with or with out the Restrict Body Price accessibility setting activated. Not less than on the subject of apps the place you scroll by way of textual content and pictures, it seems that the dynamic nature of the body charge has extra to do with something than whether or not the utmost is 60Hz or 120Hz. If there’s a distinction, once more, it’s reasonably minor.
The place it actually issues: premium video games
Many cell video games don’t help ProMotion, however a number of of them do. Shooters Name of Obligation: Cellular and PUBG Cellular help excessive refresh charges, as do video games like Brawl Stars, League of Legends: Wild Rift, Genshin Influence, Alto’s Odyssey, and extra. In most of those titles it’s a must to open the in-game choices to pick a particular 120fps or excessive body charge mode.
It’s virtually not possible to make constantly benchmark the distinction in battery life throughout dwell gameplay–there are simply too many variables. Nonetheless, in taking part in a number of of those video games with the excessive body charge choices enabled for 20 minutes at a time, I observed so much much less battery drain after I had Restrict Body Price enabled. Battery drain varies wildly from one sport to the subsequent, but it surely wasn’t unusual to have the battery final twice as lengthy with Restrict Body Price choice enabled.
However then, sport builders already know this. That’s is why it’s virtually at all times an choice, and normally not the default setting. Actually, many video games even supply 30fps limits of their sport settings, usually referred to as “Energy saving mode” or “Battery life mode,” even when the sport doesn’t help ProMotion in any respect.
It’s not simply the show makes use of extra power when a sport runs at increased body charges, however the processor as nicely. This drains your battery so much quicker.
Our advice
We suggest that almost all customers seeking to merely restrict battery drain on their iPhone 13 Professional, 14 Professional, or 15 Professional ought to most likely not allow the Restrict Body Price accessibility setting. The distinction in battery life in most apps is minimal and never definitely worth the tradeoff in smoothness.
In video games, nevertheless, limiting body charge has a big impact, and it ought to be the very first thing you study if you happen to’re involved with battery life. However that is finest achieved throughout the sport’s visible settings, which frequently present much more choices than only a 60fps restrict.
