I put the iPhone 17 Pro Max, Galaxy S26 Ultra, Pixel 10 Pro XL, and OnePlus 15 outside in freezing temperatures for a battery drain test — and I’m shocked
Publish Date: 2026-02-04 00:00:00
Source Domain: www.tomsguide.com
Most of the country is still reeling from last week’s deep freeze, which blanketed areas with record snowfall and dangerously low temperatures. I know very well how battery performance can be affected dramatically by excessive heat, but I wanted to find out exactly what cold temperatures could do.
That’s why I took some of the best phones and ran my own battery drain test to uncover what kind of changes, if any, happen when phones are exposed to frigid temperatures. For this test, I took the iPhone 17 Pro Max, Galaxy S25 Ultra, Pixel 10 Pro XL, and OnePlus 15 because they offer some of the best phone battery life around.
Obviously, there are reliable ways to keep your phone safe from the cold — but I want to uncover the truth behind battery drain in cold weather. The results surprised me. Here’s why.
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(Image credit: Tom’s Guide / John Velasco)
I ended up running two different sets of tests: one indoors and another outside during the late evening when the temperature dropped to 15º Fahrenheit. I also want to point out how long I’ve had each phone, since battery performance typically declines with time. I’ve had the Galaxy S25 Ultra the longest, followed by the Pixel 10 Pro XL, and OnePlus 15. With the iPhone 17 Pro Max, it’s a brand new unit less than a week old.
On both occasions, I charged them to 100% and manually set their display brightness to the maximum level — all while streaming a YouTube clip over Wi-Fi at the “higher picture quality” setting. After each 30-minute increment, I recorded their battery levels and ended the test after two hours.
For the second test, I placed all four phones outside at 9:30 p.m. and kept them inactive for 30 minutes to acclimatize them to the 15-degree temperature. After that, I ran the same battery test as before, streaming the exact same video clip over Wi-Fi.
Unlike the Tom’s Guide battery drain test, which measures performance by…
