Oliver Haslam on January 31, 2026, 9:53 pm

iOS 26.2.1 Battery Life Drain Tested, Here’s How Your iPhone Will Fare

Here’s iOS 26.2.1 battery life drain being tested to show how it will fare on your iPhone model.

Whenever Apple announces a new version of iOS, iPhone owners are understandably worried about how that update will affect their iPhone. Performance is one concern, but the biggest is probably how well their iPhone’s battery will fare.

That’s something YouTuber iAppleBytes sets out to get to the bottom of, and they’ve done exactly that for iOS 26.2.1 and 18.7.4.

While we don’t want to ruin the video for you, it’s important to remember that these tests are conducted in as scientific a way as possible. The display brightness of each iPhone is set to 25% with automatic brightness adjustment disabled. All devices are also configured the same way and are connected to the same WiFi in an attempt to control as many variables as possible.

The tests themselves are run using Geekbench’s battery test. The iAppleBytes video notes that there are two modes that are used to run the tests.

1. Full Discharge Mode: From 100% to 0% battery for high confidence in battery performance.

2. Partial Discharge Mode: For 3 hours. If stopped after 10 minutes, the result is saved and can be uploaded.

The previous iOS updates presented some decent battery life across some of iPhone’s older devices. At first blush, that doesn’t seem to be the case with these new updates, so make sure to check the video out to get a feel for how your battery will fare when you update to iOS 26.2.1 and 18.7.4.