This YouTuber just tripled his old iPhone 11 Pro’s battery capacity with a $10 Amazon kit – but it's a risky repair

• A YouTuber fitted a 12,000mAh battery inside an Apple iPhone 11 Pro
• It represents more than a 3x increase over the original capacity
• However, there are questions around the new battery's actual capacity

Apple iPhones are certainly among the best phones you can buy, but in terms of raw battery capacity, they do tend to lag behind their Android counterparts – something an intrepid YouTuber has tried to do something about.

This upgrade was attempted by The Fix (via Wccftech), after the battery on an old iPhone 11 Pro – launched in 2019 – had degraded to 67% of its maximum capacity. That means 2,060mAh remaining of an original 3,046mAh.

Picking up a 12,000mAh battery upgrade pack from Amazon, complete with tools, The Fix then went about swapping out the battery. It's not a particularly straightforward process, and involves some unscrewing and some careful disassembly.

After the delicate operation was completed and the phone was powered back on, it was displaying a 100% maximum capacity, with an "unverified" battery health level. Further tests revealed an actual battery capacity of 9,997mAh rather than the 12,000mAh advertised – but still more than three times the original capacity.

We've got questions

iPhone Pro 12,000 mAh Battery Upgrade & Test | iPhone Restoration - YouTube

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There are reasons to be somewhat skeptical about the capacity of this replacement battery. Firstly, because the diagnostics showed it was less than advertised in the actual product listing, but also because it takes up exactly the same physical space as the much lower capacity battery it's replacing.

What we don't get from this video is any long-term testing of battery performance. It would be interesting to see how well the battery holds a charge, and how much extra battery life it actually offers between charges.

While Apple may fit relatively small batteries inside its iPhones, its integrated approach to software and hardware engineering means that in terms of actual battery life, these handsets can hold their own against the best that Android has to offer.

This is not an upgrade that Apple recommends, and the companies that sell these battery packs aren't always the biggest or most reputable – but it's certainly a more affordable option than buying a brand new iPhone.

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