iPhone 13 Mini Battery Life: My Experience

Hi everyone!

I traded in my iPhone 12 Pro on Saturday for the 13 Mini. When I initially purchased the 12 Pro, I was trying to future proof. I wondered-and hoped-that Lidar would become increasingly helpful for us VI/blind users, I loved the idea of the extended battery life after my iPhone 8, and 6 GB of ram was appealing as well. After a year, I found that Lidar was something I never used. The battery and extra ram were great, but I wanted something smaller and more comfortable to hold. I read many claims that the 13 Mini's battery was improved from the 12 Mini and I missed the form factor of my 5S/SE devices, so I made the decision to trade in my device, especially if the Mini line will be discontinued next year as is rumored to happen. I wanted to share my experience with it so far, especially touching upon the battery as that is what many people wonder about.

First of all, it's just a tad wider and taller than the iPhone 5S/SE series. It's so much lighter than my 12 Pro and I can actually reach my fingers around the side and touch my thumb! What a concept! It runs like a dream. Everything is smooth and responsive, and the issue that I was having with my 12 Pro where my gestures would be misinterpreted (E.G. a three finger triple tap would act as a swipe left/right with one finger...strange) was no longer a problem. I also found that I could more comfortably reach the top corners of my device without strain.

I am totally blind, so I turned brightness to 0 percent, autobrightness off and turned screen curtain on. Only a select number of apps have background app refresh enabled. Bluetooth is always on as I constantly use Airpod Pros and I keep 5G off as I don't need it. Here is what I found:

On the day of my experiment, I started my day at 100% battery at 6:28 AM. At work, I streamed Youtube Music pretty much from 9 AM until when I left for home around 4 PM. I played with some apps that require use of the camera (Seeing AI and text detection in the main camera app) for a total of about 15 minutes. There was also fair use of Dystopia (Reddit app), some use of Facebook, about 3.5 hours of Facetime Audio and a phone call or two. I also watched quite a bit of Youtube, but I lock my screen when I do this and it's just the audio playing. I also played a bit of Swordy Quest, checked email, texted and used about 2 minutes of Siri overall.

I was amazed to find that by 10:30 PM, I got the 20% battery alert. I made a point to try watching Youtube with the screen unlocked and brightness at 100% to push it a little, but it felt like it took forever to die. Overall my results were:
- Total usage: 10 hours, 13 minutes
- Screen on time: 5 hours, 58 minutes
- Screen off (when phone is in use but screen is locked): 4 hours, 5 minutes

Yesterday I had similar usage, except I didn't stream Youtube Music, play Swordy and I had an hour or so of use of the Teamspeak app with these results:
-Total time: 9 hours, 28 minutes
- Screen on time: 5 hours, 35 minutes
-Screen off: 3 hours, 53 minutes

Overall, I'm in love with this little powerhouse and I will be keeping it for as long as I can! I've been very impressed so far with what I can get out of it. I hope this helps someone somewhere; if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them.
Happy Friday!