Hands up who has too much battery life in their phone? Thought not. So, the reports that the iPhone 18 Pro Max, when it’s released, is going to have a bigger battery will surely be welcome. But it means the phone is going to be heavier, a new report claims.

If you have the iPhone 17 Pro Max, you’ll know it’s far from the lightest or thinnest phone around. But it’s about to get weightier.

A bigger battery is good, but it does mean a heavier phone.

“The iPhone 18 Pro Max features a 5,500 mAh battery. But that’s the trade-off for a 240‑gram bare‑bone body and a 9‑millimeter-thick chassis,” regular leaker Ice Universe said on Weibo.

So, what does this mean?

Well, 240g is the heaviest an iPhone has ever been. It was the weight of the iPhone 13 Pro Max released in 2021, according to Apple. The iPhone 14 Pro Max retained the record for the heaviest weight the following year. To be clear, the iPhone 17 Pro Max weighs 233 grams. So, you may be asking, will anyone really notice a 7-gram difference?

Perhaps not, but many commented on how much lighter the iPhone 15 Pro Max was when it launched in 2023 and weighed 221g. That was when Apple switched from stainless steel to titanium for the phone. The current model has an aluminum build.

Reports say the new phone could have the biggest battery capacity yet.

There have been other reports recently, including regulatory filings which suggest the battery of the iPhone 18 Pro Max will be 5,567mAh in the U.S. (and 5,391mAh in China where a SIM card tray takes up space the American version does not require). That’s a noticeable uptick from the current model.

That said, it’s worth remembering that a bigger battery doesn’t necessarily mean longer life. Sorry about that.

More features can mean battery life doesn’t extend, though.

The extra battery capacity could be used to power the new Apple Intelligence features such as Siri AI. Apple has a history of maintaining battery life in the face of power-hungry demands rather than adding to how long they last between charges. My guess is that is likely to be the case here.

There have also been rumors that the iPhone 18 Pro Max will be thicker, again to handle greater battery size. The current model is large already, so if this proves true, the next phone could be quite a handful — especially for the millions of users who clad their phone in a protective case.

Oh, and one more thing, as they say. The iPhone 18 Pro Max could hold its joint record for being the heaviest phone for just a matter of minutes: the company’s first foldable, possibly called the iPhone Ultra, likely to be announced alongside, might be even heavier.

Source: Forbes

--Agencies