The iPhone 15 Professional and iPhone 15 Professional Max each have implausible 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 among the longest-lasting high-end smartphones you should buy.
However the non-Professional iPhones typically have longer battery life. We all know that the upper refresh price of 120Hz ProMotion shows can have a major 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: should you stopped your iPhone 15 Professional from going as much as 120Hz, would it not make the battery last more? After a number of days of testing, I can verify 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 price 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 price to 60Hz, which is able to stop the show from ramping as much as these battery-draining excessive refresh charges. After all, it additionally means you don’t get the sleek 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 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 Charge.
Does it make a distinction?
After all, what I actually wish to know is whether or not or not this makes an actual distinction battery life. If you happen to may get an additional hour of screen-on time with Restrict Body Charge enabled, it might be price giving up the additional smoothness for some customers.
I ran my normal 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 seems like this setting does have an effect, albeit a minor one. In two assessments 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 hand over the 120Hz smoothness for.
It’s arduous to know what the refresh price is through the Geekbench 4 take a look at, which exhibits a comparatively static display screen throughout the complete benchmark, so I attempted a number of different assessments. 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 consequence was in keeping with or with out the Restrict Body Charge accessibility setting activated. No less than in relation to apps the place you scroll by way of textual content and pictures, it seems that the dynamic nature of the body price 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 fairly minor.
The place it actually issues: premium video games
Many cell video games don’t assist ProMotion, however a number of of them do. Shooters Name of Responsibility: Cell and PUBG Cell assist 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 out a particular 120fps or excessive body price mode.
It’s virtually not possible to make constantly benchmark the distinction in battery life throughout reside gameplay–there are simply too many variables. Nonetheless, in taking part in a number of of those video games with the excessive body price choices enabled for 20 minutes at a time, I observed so much much less battery drain once I had Restrict Body Charge 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 Charge choice enabled.
However then, sport builders already know this. That’s is why it’s virtually at all times an choice, and often not the default setting. Actually, many video games even supply 30fps limits of their sport settings, usually known as “Energy saving mode” or “Battery life mode,” even when the sport doesn’t assist ProMotion in any respect.
It’s not simply the show makes use of extra vitality when a sport runs at larger body charges, however the processor as nicely. This drains your battery so much quicker.
Our advice
We advocate that the majority customers trying to merely restrict battery drain on their iPhone 13 Professional, 14 Professional, or 15 Professional ought to in all probability not allow the Restrict Body Charge accessibility setting. The distinction in battery life in most apps is minimal and never definitely worth the tradeoff in smoothness.
In video games, nonetheless, limiting body price has a huge effect, and it must be the very first thing you study should you’re involved with battery life. However that is finest completed inside the sport’s visible settings, which regularly present much more choices than only a 60fps restrict.