The iPhone Duo’s battery specs are finally confirmed, but it’s not great news

I won’t lie, since first seeing the iPhone Duo, Apple’s new foldable phone, I’ve been pretty keen to get my hands on one. However, a month after the Duo’s big reveal, Apple might have been hiding the phone’s biggest drawback. According to recent reports, the Duo packs a 4,883 mAh battery, significantly smaller than the iPhone 18 Pro Max and some of the top picks in our guide to the best foldable phones.

Compare the iPhone Duo’s battery to the Honor Magic V6’s 6,660 mAh battery or the Xiaomi 18 Fold’s 6,000 mAh battery, and it’s clear why some potential users are a little concerned. This is an expensive phone, with the cheapest configuration retailing for $1,999. That means you’d expect the best of the best, and, on paper at least, Apple’s first foldable seems to be a bit lacking in this department.

Not only is the iPhone Duo’s battery not exactly a whopper, but it also doesn’t offer quite as many charge cycles as some of its rivals. According to the new details, the Duo is capable of 1,000 charge cycles before depleting to 80% of its original capacity, whereas the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 can do 1,200. That means while the Z Fold 8 might have a slightly smaller 4,800 mAh battery, the Samsung phone is better equipped to maintain your charge in the long run.

It’s important to note that this speculation is based purely on specs, and we’ll have to wait for users to get their hands on the iPhone Duo to see just how its battery performs. It could be that its A20 Pro chip is more efficient than we’re anticipating, which means it requires less battery power to run the best iPhone games and perform other demanding tasks. On the other hand, this smaller-than-anticipated battery could be the expensive foldable’s weakness. We’ll have to wait and see.

Despite pre-orders starting just a couple of days ago, we’re still waiting for the first full iPhone Duo reviews. Given the sky-high price point of the foldable phone, there’s a lot on the line for Apple with this launch, so we’re keen to see how its first users get on with the phone and whether it experiences any of the problems that Samsung had with its own first foldable launch back in 2019.