The iPhone 15 Professional and Professional Max each have incredible battery life. It’s roughly the identical because the iPhone 14 Professional and Professional Max from final yr (simply barely longer in our testing), however that makes them among the longest-lasting high-end smartphones you should purchase.
However the non-Professional iPhones typically have longer battery life. We all know that the upper refresh fee of 120Hz ProMotion shows can have a big influence 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: in case you 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 verify that it does assist, however not sufficient to be value it, with one exception: gaming.
Apple doesn’t present a way to disable ProMotion the iPhone Professional fashions. The show merely dynamically adjusts refresh fee 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 fee 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 will likely be value 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. In case you may get an additional hour of screen-on time with Restrict Body Price enabled, it might be value 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 take a look at with the show calibrated to 200 nits, with auto-brightness and True Tone disabled.
It appears to be like like this setting does have an effect, albeit a minor one. In two checks per cellphone, I constantly noticed a battery life enchancment of round 5 p.c. That one thing, nevertheless it’s not the sort of change that makes you wish to hand over the 120Hz smoothness for.
It’s exhausting to know what the refresh fee is in the course of the Geekbench 4 take a look at, which exhibits a comparatively static display throughout all the benchmark, so I attempted a number of different checks. I scrolled by way of Instagram and reddit constantly, with only a few pauses and the brightness cranked as much as about 70 p.c. 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 right down to 99.
That outcome was according to or with out the Restrict Body Price accessibility setting activated. At the least in relation to apps the place you scroll by way of textual content and pictures, it seems that the dynamic nature of the body fee 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 and help excessive refresh charges, as do video games like Brawl Stars, , , Alto’s Odyssey, and extra. In most of those titles you must open the in-game choices to pick a particular 120fps or excessive body fee mode.
It’s virtually not possible to make constantly benchmark the distinction in battery life throughout stay gameplay–there are simply too many variables. Nonetheless, in taking part in a number of of those video games with the excessive body fee choices enabled for 20 minutes at a time, I seen so much much less battery drain after I had Restrict Body Price enabled. Battery drain varies wildly from one recreation to the following, nevertheless it wasn’t unusual to have the battery final twice as lengthy with Restrict Body Price possibility enabled.
However then, recreation builders already know this. That’s is why it’s virtually at all times an possibility, and often not the default setting. In actual fact, many video games even supply 30fps limits of their recreation 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 recreation runs at increased body charges, however the processor as effectively. This drains your battery so much sooner.
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 fee has a big impact, and it must be the very first thing you look at in case you’re involved with battery life. However that is greatest achieved inside the recreation’s visible settings, which frequently present way more choices than only a 60fps restrict.
