XDA-Developers senior tech editor Adam Conway started experiencing the Google Pixel 7 Pro smartphone on Monday, and while he was amazed by the hardware and software experience, he also encountered some problems. For example, while the battery life has been significantly optimized, when used at higher brightness levels, the power consumption increases abnormally for a short period of time, causing the battery life to plummet. The problem was confirmed by Daniel Bader, head of Valnet’s technology brand, but it’s unclear if it can be easily fixed with a software update.
Based on this, it can be determined that the Pixel 7 Pro will consume more power in outdoor scenarios (when the screen brightness is pulled up). The bigger problem, however, is that the increase in brightness and power consumption is not linear.
After talking to other members of XDA-Developers, Adam Conway collected power readings from the device and found that the Pixel 7 Pro appeared to have serious display performance issues.
He then enlisted the help of display analyst Dylan Raga, and the two compared measurements from the Pixel 6 Pro and Galaxy S22 Plus to learn more about the Pixel 7 Pro’s anomalies.
It was clear that at 600 nits, the four Pixel 7 Pros consumed around 3.5 to 4W of power. But when pulled up to maximum brightness, the power spikes to 6W.
It should also be noted that the regular display brightness level, usually measures peak brightness at 1% APL (only a small portion of the screen is lit). While in a pure white interface, the entire panel will spike to 1000 nits in high brightness mode.
For reference, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra smartphone only consumes about 2/4W of power at 600 / 1000 nits brightness.
Dylan Raga mentioned that — according to data collected by Adam Conway — the Pixel 7 Pro’s screen consumes nearly half the power of the Galaxy S22+ / S22 Ultra.
As for the previous-generation Pixel 6 Pro model, similar trends were found in real-world testing. Presumably, Google had problems with panel selection, and the Pixel 7 Pro made the problem worse.
Adam Conway also spoke with Android Police’s Ben Sin, Daniel Bader, and Manuel Voneu, whose Pixel 7 Pro device from Google roughly replicates the problem.
For reference, the Tensor G2 chipset in the Pixel 7 Pro has a TDP power consumption of 10 to 12W, meaning that the screen in manual brightness will only consume slightly less than half the power of the former.
But in high-brightness mode, or when playing performance-intensive games, it’s entirely possible to quickly run out of power in three hours at 18W.
Awkwardly, that’s not the only problem the Pixel 7 Pro is experiencing. For example, Prasad Naik of GSM Arena pointed out on Twitter that the screen stays active for a shorter period of time even when the phone is turned off (locked).