iPhone 12 Pro Max 7 days old and battery lasts less than 5hrs

Question

iPhone 12 Pro Max 7 days old and battery lasts less than 5hrs

I upgraded at the weekend from 11 pro max to 12 pro max and the 12 is worst on battery life by a country mile.

I work in a place where phones are now allowed so it gets left in the cars glove box, The iPhone 11 idle for 12hrs from 100% battery was 95% charged, the iPhone 12 less than 80%.

Now today first real day of use as my first day off work and first day of use on the phone. The phone now is sat not doing anything dropping 1% battery every 2-3 mins idle with all apps closed. When I use the phone say something like a YouTube video and it can drop 10% battery in 2-3mins and the phone is too hot to hold. I am not talking burn yourself but enough to think 'Christ this is hurting" so had to stop using the device till cool enough to hold.

The iPhone 11 Pro max was NEVER as bad as this and would last me around 2 days with my type of use before I'd have to find a charger , the 12 seems to be wanting charging 2 times a day on the same usage.

I don't know if I've got a defective unit but surely it can't be this bad on battery and this hot compared to the previous flagship model.

Posted on Nov 28, 2020 2:33 PM

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Answer 1

Dogcow-Moof

Level 8

36,605 points

Nov 29, 2020 1:04 AM in response to ericfromsheffield

Since you have two, you may want to do what people with 11s had to when that phone was released:

Erase your phone
Set it up as a new phone, don't transfer any of your saved settings over
See if it still has issues.
Then start adding your apps and settings one by one and see if you can narrow down what is causing the issue.

Sure it takes a while, but if you still have your 11 Pro Max and don't need to send it in as a trade-in you have time to play with it.

Of course you don't need to do this, but it was very useful last year when the 11 Pro Max came out.

Plus once again, just try Low Power Mode for one day and see if the battery usage is reduced. That doesn't mean you have to always use it that way, it's just an experiment.

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Answer 2

Nov 28, 2020 3:03 PM in response to Dogcow-Moof

I shouldn’t have to though. According to apple I should be able to watch easy 12 to 20hrs of video playback and can is 18mins.

ive copied a quote at random from a popular phone review site and there’s NO way I’m getting close to these figures

“The iPhone 12 Pro Max did great on our battery test - it lasted north of 14 hours on web browsing, more than 15 hours when playing videos, and you can use it for up to 21 hours of talk time.

The standby performance is about the average for this battery size and modem (Apple uses Qualcomm X55). Mixing these results in our magical formula, we ended up with a pretty good endurance rating of 95 hours for the iPhone 12 Pro Max - about 7% lower than the 102h number we got on the 11 Pro Max but still the best among this year's iPhones.”

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Answer 3

Nov 29, 2020 12:15 AM in response to Dogcow-Moof

I 100% don’t have any social media shenanigans on the phone at all. I didn’t even pull the backup from the 11 pro as that simply refused to install from my MacBook and Mac mini so had no choice but to set it up vanilla. The 11 pro installed the backup from my old iPhone X ( I have 2 phones ) from the MacBook. So really right out of the box the 12 has been terrible experience, I had to buy 3rd party software to retrieve photos from the 11 pro backup on the MacBook to put back on the 12.

just looking on this forum and the iPhone 12 posts seem to be of 2 things , battery and heat issues. I believe they are both one and the same issue with the 12.

I shouldn’t have to put the phone down to cool it down after eBaying ( which is my 2nd job and why I have a pro phone and no social media on it ) so the phone isn’t fit for purpose in some respects.

Here are usages from the iPhone 11 Pro Max 256gb which is my 2nd phone.

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Answer 4

Dogcow-Moof

Level 8

36,605 points

Nov 28, 2020 2:50 PM in response to ericfromsheffield

According to those statistics you have 4h and 26m over that time that the screen was on, and that will draw a lot of power.

Just as an experiment, have you tried turning on Low Power Mode to see if that makes a difference for you?

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Answer 5

Dogcow-Moof

Level 8

36,605 points

Nov 28, 2020 9:50 PM in response to ericfromsheffield

Your battery usage is high, but something was responsible for that.

You say the phone was idle, but the stats seem to indicate the screen was on.

Also note for the "Up to" figures quoted:

All battery claims depend on network configuration and many other factors; actual results will vary.

So again I ask, just as an experiment, have you tried turning on Low Power Mode to see if that makes a difference for you?

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Answer 6

Nov 28, 2020 11:50 PM in response to Dogcow-Moof

I will try today , if not I’ll return it and keep my 11 pro Max as that did 14hrs of continuing use before a charge was required.

will low power mode help with the too hot to hold the phone while using it too ? I don’t have a case for the phone yet so I’ll have to use oven gloves till that arrives.

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Answer 7

Dogcow-Moof

Level 8

36,605 points

Nov 29, 2020 12:31 AM in response to ericfromsheffield

You said "I 100% don’t have any social media shenanigans on the phone at all" yet the screen shots you posted showed Facebook using 73% of your battery in one shot and 69% in the other.

When Facebook is running it's continuously loading pictures and videos in the background and is using a lot of CPU.

That said, I don't even notice mine becoming warm.

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Answer 8

helder33

Level 1

4 points

Dec 1, 2020 11:33 AM in response to ericfromsheffield

There is a thread on the community about battery drain on iPhone 12's ... check it:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251956914?answerId=254020651022&page=1

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Answer 9

Dogcow-Moof

Level 8

36,605 points

Nov 28, 2020 11:58 PM in response to ericfromsheffield

If it's that warm you're running something that is using a lot of CPU, which can be Facebook, Instagram or whatever.

That having been said, I don't feel mine warm up.

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Answer 10

Nov 29, 2020 12:56 AM in response to Dogcow-Moof

That's on the 11 pro max mate. As you can see on that 8-9hrs of use and battery is around 50% still, iPhone 12 Pro max 4.4hrs of use 12% battery left in the original post.

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iPhone 12 Pro Max 7 days old and battery lasts less than 5hrs

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