There is more than one reason Apple is always the reference point for many OEMs when it comes to the smartphone industry.
Regardless of all of the efforts from Google, Samsung and other Android OEMs, the Apple iPhone has always been the one setting the standards, but this is not always true when it comes to individual aspects of the smartphone.
Over the recent past, smartphone buyers have started missing the good old days when they would charge their phones once a week. Even though these smartphones can do lots of things that these old brick phones couldn’t, battery life is one thing they can never beat the latter. Smartphone OEMs have been trying all means to keep up with the demand for thinner devices while ensuring they don’t lose too much battery life.
Samsung tried too hard with the Galaxy Note 7 and we all know what happened. To make sure that things don’t repeat, the tech giant has elected to go with much bigger phones, yet keeping the battery size at the same capacity as before. Apple, on the other hand, isn’t known for housing huge battery units inside the iPhone, however, the phones have always had great battery life even when compared to the Android counterparts that boast nearly twice the battery capacity on cases like the Huawei Mate 10.
The Apple iPhone X, for instance, has a battery capacity of 2716mAh while the Samsung Galaxy S8, which has the same screen size of 5.8 inches, has a slightly bigger 3000mAh unit. While the difference might seem small, Consumer Reports says that the S8 manages a battery life of 26 hours compared to 19.5 hours of the iPhone X.
Now, to make sure that the iPhone X successor gets an improved battery life, Apple is rumored to be working on a plan to bump the battery capacity from 2716mAh to around 3000mAh. This would essentially place it on level terms with the current Galaxy S8, but it’s likely Samsung will stick to the same capacity with respect to the Galaxy S9. Just think of it as an iPhone X with a bigger 3000mAh battery. Cool huh!
If this does happen, it would represent an increase of about 10% over the current unit, but it’ll depend on the ability of Apple and LG Chem to deploy a new one-cell design in place of the current two-cell design used in the iPhone X. According to KGI Securities’ Ming-Chi Kuo, having this new technology would allow more room to accommodate a bigger battery in the 2018 5.8-inch iPhone.
Kuo is still adamant that Apple will unveil up to three new iPhones next year, with 6.1-inch LCD and 6.5-inch OLED models joining the 5.8-inch model, but he believes that only the latter will take advantage of the space-efficient one-cell design. Due to the physical size of the 6.5-inch model, there will be enough space to house a bigger 3300-3400mAh battery even with the two-cell battery design.
Apple is also expected to include TrueDepth camera on the 2018 5-8-inch iPhone, which further adds to the power hungry components of the phone. To ensure that the battery power remains the same as the iPhone X or gets better, it’s indeed a no-brainer to have a bigger battery.