Just a day before Apple's September iPhone event, we finally have confirmed battery capacity numbers for the iPhone 17 Pro and all models in the series, thanks to Chinese regulatory filings.
See also: Samsung Galaxy S26 may look like iPhone 17
All iPhone 17 models will feature larger batteries this year compared to their predecessors, the iPhone 16s. The biggest increases will come in the form of the iPhone 17 Pro, whose capacity increases by 18.7% compared to the iPhone 16 Pro.
Specifically, the iPhone 16 Pro has a battery capacity of 3582 mAH. The battery capacity of the iPhone 17 Pro will be 4252 mAH, an increase of 400 mAH.
What does this mean specifically in terms of extra hours of daily battery life? We'll have to wait for Apple's measurements to know for sure, but historically, Apple has reported 2 extra hours of battery life in its streaming video when going from the 15 Pro to the 16 Pro. The increase in capacity between those models was only about 300 mAH. So for the 17 Pro, you could get another 3 hours of reported battery life. That would mean the 17 Pro would have more battery life than Apple claims the 16 Pro Max can achieve.
The 17 Pro Max will see an iPhone break the 5000 mAh barrier for the first time, reaching 5088 mAh, compared to 4685 mAh for the 16 Pro Max, an increase of 8.6% year-over-year. As with the 17 Pro, this represents about a 400 mAh increase, so you can expect another 3 or 4 hours of useful daily battery life.
That number of 5088 is close to high-end Android phones, but iPhones generally run much more efficiently, so it's very possible that the 17 Pro Max will become the new king of smartphone battery life.
See also: iPhone 17 Pro: What do we know so far?
Another interesting point is that for the first time, iPhone 17 models with eSIM will have slightly longer battery life than those with a physical SIM slot. Apple is expected to release iPhone 17s with eSIM only in the US, Europe and other markets. Apple will continue to sell iPhone models with physical SIM slots in certain regions, including China, to comply with local laws.
Using the numbers from the eSIM models, the new battery capacities will be:
- 3692 mAH iPhone 17
- 4252 mAH iPhone 17 Pro
- 5088 mAH iPhone 17 Pro Max
- 3149 mAH iPhone 17 Air
Of course, battery longevity is a combination of capacity and the energy efficiency of the device. But we have no reason to expect the energy efficiency of the iPhone 17 components to get any worse.
In reality, it will probably improve. The A19 and A19 Pro processors are believed to be built with TSMC's newer 3‑nanometer N3P process, which is said to be even more efficient than the N3E process used to manufacture the A18 processors in the iPhone 16 series. Meanwhile, other power‑hungry components such as the display are not expected to change much from year to year, with Apple keeping the same screen sizes for the Pro phones.
You shouldn't expect much of a battery boost for the base iPhone 17 model, though. Its battery is only up 4%, and this year, the 17 will get a new display that will grow from 6.1 to 6.3 inches diagonally and will likely feature ProMotion 120FPS for the first time. Apple will likely report real-world battery usage stats that are the same as the iPhone 16.
See also: iPhone 17 Pro: Maybe it wirelessly charges AirPods and Apple Watch
Similarly, many have said that the new ultra-thin iPhone 17 Air will disappoint regarding battery life, and you can see from this data that the capacity is 17% smaller than the base iPhone 17 model. The thinness clearly comes with compromises. However, the capacity of 3149 mAH is still better than the sub‑3000 mAH numbers that were circulating a few months ago.
