Since starting to use the Pixel 7 Pro on Monday, Adam Conway, Senior Technical Editor at XDA-Developers, has noted that even though the battery life is significantly better than the model it replaces the battery drains quickly and dramatically when you use the phone at a greater brightness.
Increasing Pixel 7 Pro’s Brightness Is Causing to Have a Negative Impact on the Battery
It is now safe to assume that using the phone display outside will use more energy. The power demand is what’s causing the problem. After speaking with other XDA members and gathering data from their devices, Conway came to the conclusion that the Pixel 7 Pro appears to have a significant display issue. All four Google Pixel 7 Pro devices tested reached their maximum output between 3.5W and 4W at 600 nits. When you increase the brightness to its maximum, though, things grow worse. The power used by the display increased to 6W. These display luminance ratings typically measure the maximum brightness at 1% APL, or just a tiny portion of the screen lighting up. On the other hand, when the white screen appears, high brightness mode ought to increase to 1000 nits throughout the full panel. The Tensor G2 found in the Pixel 7 Pro has a TDP of 10 to 12W, which helps to explain the issue. Although the tests are not yet complete, this does mean that the display alone at manual brightness is probably using just a little bit less than half of the chipset’s maximum power. It is absolutely possible to use up to 18W of battery power while playing demanding games or in high brightness settings. With just the display and the chipset operating, this would quickly drain any smartphone battery in less than three hours. Since the testing is still in its early stages, it is still too early to make any conclusions. Conway observed the same, unpredictable power draw when testing the identical behaviour across various devices. Fortunately, the standard Pixel 7 models are significantly more conventional, so the problem just affects the Pro model. Even in its current state, we don’t believe that a software update will be able to cure it. Google might eventually repair it, but not before more information is revealed.
