iPhone 13 Pro Max has a charging surprise

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Apple's biggest phone seems to be able to handle 27W charging

iPhone 13 Pro Max
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

In our iPhone 13 Pro Max review, we were impressed with the phone’s improved battery life thanks to its bigger battery pack, but the lack of fast charging was a bit of a bummer.

But according to a GizChina report, the biggest iPhone 13 can charge its 4,352 mAh battery to 48% in half an hour, and it does this by hitting nearly 27W charging. That’s a bit odd given Apple has the charging rated at 20 watts, the same as the iPhone 12 range. 

So going by this report — we've yet to test this for ourselves — it would appear that the iPhone 13 Pro Max is actually charging at a faster pace and thus at a higher wattage than Apple claims. But there are caveats here.

GizChina’s testing found that by using a 96W charging head (the one for the iPhone 13 Pro Max ranges from 5W to 96W) the top-end iPhone 13 handset can reach a peak charging wattage of 26.6 watts. But this fluctuated a fair bit, sometimes going down to 11 watts. 

Nevertheless, the iPhone 13 Pro Max managed to fill up its battery to 48% in 30 minutes and got to 84% after an hour of charging. That clearly shows a degree of fluctuation is going on, but it still indicates there’s a distinct boost in charging capacity of the iPhone 13 Pro Max over the iPhone 12 Pro Max. 

But to take advantage of that you’ll need a 30W charger rather than Apple’s 20W one, which you still have to buy separately as Apple won’t bundle one in the box. And 27W charging pales in comparison to that of the best Android phones, especially the OnePlus 9 Pro and Oppo Find X3 Pro. 

However, this is a sign that faster charging could be possible in future iPhones, and is something we definitely want to see in the iPhone 14. 

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Roland Moore-Colyer
Roland Moore-Colyer

Roland Moore-Colyer a Managing Editor at Tom’s Guide with a focus on news, features and opinion articles. He often writes about gaming, phones, laptops and other bits of hardware; he’s also got an interest in cars. When not at his desk Roland can be found wandering around London, often with a look of curiosity on his face.