The Pixel 7 Pro and the Pixel 7 are here and finally available to buy now. We have been spending a lot of time with the phones, and while Google seems to have pulled out all stops for its ‘Pro’ variant for the most part — its battery life has been disappointing.
In my time with the Pixel 7 Pro, I quickly realized that the battery life does not live up to its “all day” claim that Google mentions. I had a full charge on the Pixel 7 Pro every morning and with pretty heavy use of messaging apps, social media and Google Maps, I found the battery to be down to 50% after 4 hours. That’s not dismal, but it’s definitely not the high point of the phone.
The Pixel 7 Pro has a 5,000 mAh battery, which is significantly more than the 4,355 mAh found on the Pixel 7 but is the same as the Pixel 6 Pro. I had hoped that after the Pixel 6 Pro’s poor battery life, Google would have paid closer attention to improving it this time around. While there is an endurance boost here, it's not as much as I'd hoped.
Google Pixel 7 Pro battery life results
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Battery size | Battery life (hrs:mins) |
| Pixel 7 Pro | 5,000 mAh | 9:21 |
| iPhone 14 Pro Max | 4,323 mAh | 13:39 |
| Galaxy S22 Ultra | 5,000 mAh | 10:18 |
| iPhone 14 Plus | 4,325 mAh | 11:57 |
| OnePlus 10T | 4,800 mAh | 11:22 |
| Row 6 - Cell 0 | Row 6 - Cell 1 | Row 6 - Cell 2 |
Battery saver mode on the Pixel 7 Pro carried me through the rest of my day, so luckily, I only had to pull out the charger at night.
Our own battery test results revealed the battery life to be worse than what I found in my use though. The Pixel 7 Pro lasted only 9 hours and 21 minutes with adaptive refresh rate turned off, at only 150 nits of brightness — that’s 10% of the brightness the phone is actually capable of. The Pixel 6 Pro, on the other hand, gave us 7 hours and 55 minutes in our tests.
So while that result is better, it's still well below the 11.5-hour threshold for our l best phone battery life list. The iPhone 14 Pro Max, for example, lasted 13.5 hours and the iPhone 14 Plus nearly 12 hours. The Galaxy S22 Ultra lasted 10 hours and 18 minutes.
The Pixel 7 Pro display is a power guzzler
The Pixel 7 Pro has a lot going for it — sleeker design, an amazing 50MP camera, a new Tensor G2 chip and a brighter display. But now one report suggests that it is the bright display that could be the culprit in bringing down the battery life on the Pro.
I had a full charge on the Pixel 7 Pro every morning and with pretty heavy use of messaging apps, social media and Google Maps, I found the battery to be down to 50% after 4 hours.
XDA Developers have reported that the power consumption of the Pixel 7 Pro is between 3.5 and 4 Watts at 600 nits of brightness. But at the max brightness (1500 nits), it goes up to a massive 6W. This could be draining significant battery on the phone.
For comparison, XDA Developers says the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra would use 4W at 1000 nits of brightness and the Pixel 6 Pro uses 4W of power at around 800 nits of brightness. It is only the Pixel 7 Pro that seems to be the power guzzler; the Pixel 7 doesn’t seem to have the same issue.
Luckily, using the phone indoors and at a low brightness will not flare up the problem and users would probably only notice it when using the Pro in bright sunlight for hours at a stretch. It is also not known right now whether this is a bug. In case it is, hopefully a simple software patch update should fix the issue.
I kept the Pixel 7 Pro brightness at a modest mid to low level and even then it was pretty bright so I didn’t notice the big battery drain issue myself in the past week. But either way, this means that the battery life on the Pixel 7 Pro is just not good.
Bottom line
I do wish that Google had adequately amped up its top flagship’s battery prowess that would make picking this phone over other Android phones a complete no-brainer. The Pixel 7 Pro has everything else that works really well and even with its subpar battery life, it is still one of the best Android phones around.
Next: I just tested the Pixel 7 Photo Unblur feature — and the results are pretty amazing. Check this out. Also read about how I love the design of the Pixel 7 Pro — except for this one thing.
