With the official release of iOS 13 in September, came the long-awaited Dark Mode. Pretty self-explanatory, Dark Mode enabled the user to set darker colors system-wide.
With the OLED displays used in pricier iPhones, the phone can show deeper blacks seeing as the display can turn off individual pixels. Until recently, it wasn’t clear how much of a battery life improvement could be made by using Dark Mode all the time.
A youtuber by the name PhoneBuff posted a video in which he tested the battery life differences between light and dark mode. The iPhone used in the test was the iPhone Xs, released in September 2018.
In the test, the precise Robotic Arm cycled through everyday tasks like messaging, scrolling through your twitter feed and using maps. The results were astounding.
The test starts off with some messaging on both devices. After two hours of messaging, the iPhone with Dark Mode enabled retained 88% of its battery, while the iPhone with Light Mode only kept 83%.
The test continues with a 2 hour scroll through the Twitter feed. The Dark Mode iPhone starts to take a big advantage here, with 72% remaining compared to 57% on the right phone. That’s a huge chunk of your battery just powering those white pixels.
The third part of the test it the 2 hour video playback test. Both phones have the same Youtube videos playing, and at the end of this part, Dark Mode comes out with 43% battery compared to 20% on Light Mode.
The final portion of the test is navigating with Apple Maps. Here is where Dark Mode really shines. Light Mode quickly runs out of battery, whereas the iPhone with Dark Mode enabled still has a whopping 30%. This is a tremendous lead. Keep in mind that these are the same phones, with the same firmware, apps and test being made.
We never thought that Dark Mode could bring such big battery life improvements. If your battery isn’t lasting throughout the day, you may want to consider using Dark Mode more often. Keep in mind Dark Mode only significantly helps battery life on OLED iPhones.
You can watch the full video from PhoneBuff here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbxdHpD5jWw
Do you enjoy using Dark Mode on your iPhone?