iPhone 7 battery life falls well short of Android rivals

The iPhone 7 has the worst battery life of flagship smartphones on sale today, according to Which?, the consumer advice publication.

When tested against the HTC 10, Samsung Galaxy S7 and LG G5, the iPhone came last in results Which? described as "staggering". The publication added in a blog post: "The iPhone 7 may be touted by Apple as its best smartphone ever, as is tradition, but sometimes your best just isn't good enough."

UK-based Which? tested how long each of the four handsets lasts when making phone calls and browsing the web over 3G. The phones started each test at 100% charge and were running the latest publically-available software, which means iOS 10 for the iPhone 7 and Android 6.0 Marshmallow for the others. Although 7.0 Nougat is around, it isn't yet available on a lot of handsets.

During the call test the iPhone 7 died after 712 minutes, nearly 12 hours, short of the "up to 14 hours" quoted by Apple. The third place Samsung Galaxy S7 lasted 1,492 minutes, more than twice as long as the iPhone. Second place went to the LG G5, which survived for 1,579 minutes, and the winner was the HTC 10, at 1,859 minutes or almost 31 hours.

As for web browsing, described by Which? as "arguably the more important measure," the iPhone was again the first to run out of charge. The phone lasted 615 minutes, or almost 10.5 hours and 90 minutes short of Apple's claims.

This time the LG G5 came third with 640 minutes, while the Galaxy S7 was second with 677 and the HTC 10 was again the clear leader, lasting for 790 minutes – even longer than the iPhone 7 managed on the less taxing call time test.

And the reason for the iPhone 7's lack of stamina? Quite simply, it is due to having a smaller battery. At 1.960 milliampere hours (mAh), the iPhone's battery is considerably smaller than those of its rivals. The HTC 10 and Galaxy S7, for example, have huge 3,000mAh batteries, while the LG comes in at 2,800mAh. These handsets are physically larger than the iPhone 7 and it is true that the bigger iPhone 7 Plus lasts longer, but it's a difficult balancing act between stamina and size.

As far as IBTimes UK is concerned, while the competition last longer during varied, everyday use, the iPhone 7 still manages to regularly last an entire working day, ending at 10:30pm with around 30% battery remaining.

Do you own any of the phones featured here? How does their battery life stack up? Let us know in the comments below or by tweeting us @IBTimesUKTech.