Save Battery Power When Using 5G
Perhaps the biggest improvement to the iPhone 12 this year was something that shouldn’t have been a surprise to anybody at all, and that’s the addition of 5G support to the entire lineup.
Much like we saw with the advent of 3G and LTE years ago, others beat Apple to releasing the first 5G smartphones, but Apple has arguably done a much better job here by waiting for the second-generation of more power-efficient 5G modem chips as well as baking in a new “Smart Data Mode” to save power by only using 5G when it’s actually needed.
The fact is that 5G still uses a lot more power than 4G LTE, and this is even more true if you’re using the ultra-fast mmWave 5G with its much higher frequencies. Testing has shown that the iPhone can lose as much as two hours of its normal battery life when surfing exclusively over a 5G connection.
This could be a serious battery killer if it weren’t for Apple’s Smart Data Mode, however, and while we’ll have to wait to see how it plays out in people’s everyday real-world experiences, it’s a fairly safe bet that most users probably won’t notice nearly as significant of a battery drain as long as they leave Smart Data Mode enabled (which it is by default), as the majority of what most folks do on their iPhones don’t require the extra speeds offered by 5G, and the 5G radios most certainly don’t need to be engaged when your iPhone is sitting in your pocket.