The forthcoming iPhone 18 Pro Max could finally see Apple’s flagship phone overtaking its bitter rival in one key department.
Apple’s phones are always competitive with their flagship Android rivals across most of the key areas – especially when it comes to build quality, performance and camera quality.
One area where they always lag behind is battery capacity – but that could be all set to change with the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro Max.
According to a Weibo post shared by leaker Fireuniverse on X, Apple’s next super-sized flagship phone will pack a 5425mAh battery for the eSIM model and a 5235mAh cell for the physical SIM variant.
Either way, that would see the iPhone 18 Pro Max cleanly overtaking the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, which has a fixed 5000mAh battery.
Apple’s expansive vision
The arrival of the current generation technically saw the iPhone 17 Pro Max squeaking past its rival with a 5088mAh battery, but only for the eSIM model. That version is only sold in 12 countries, including the US, with the UK among those to be excluded.
Meanwhile, the regular physical SIM variant (which also supports eSIM) had to make do with a smaller 4823mAh cell.
It’s worth clarifying that while iPhones typically have smaller capacities than their Android rivals, they tend to hold their own on battery life. What iPhones lack in capacity, they make up for with the efficiency of iOS and Apple’s power-efficient chipsets.
Of course, if you were to throw a decent amount of battery into the equation, alongside an even more efficient Apple A20 chip (presumably what it’d be called), we could be looking at a serious battery life champ in the iPhone 18 Pro Max.
Whether it’ll scale the heights of the OnePlus 15, the Oppo Find X9 Pro and the rest of the silicon-carbon (Si-C) battery brigade is another thing entirely, but it’d be a surprise not to see it ranked among the best battery life phones you can buy.
Of course, we won’t know for sure until we review the 18 Pro Max for ourselves. With the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max rumoured to launch on 8 or 9 September, we don’t have long to wait.
