What does mAh mean on a battery?

If you’re on an eternal quest for longer battery life, then the mAh rating is the magic number you need to consider when buying a portable charger or a smartphone.

Milliampere hour (mAh) is the capacity of a battery – the higher the number, the longer its operating time. Put another way, if you compare voltage to the amount of petrol a car is using, then mAh is the size of the petrol tank.

You can calculate how long a battery will last (under optimal conditions) if you know the capacity (mAh) of the battery and consumption (milliamps) of the device pulling the power.

So, if you have a device which consumes 100mA continuous current and a battery with a capacity of 2000mAh you’ll get an operating time of about 20 hours.

These days you can expect mobile phones to have batteries of around 4000mAh. The Samsung Galaxy Note20 comes in at 4500mAh, while the TCL 10L and Alcatel sit at 4000mAh.

The iPhone 11 has a 3110mAh battery, the iPhone 11 Pro has 3046mAh and the iPhone 11 Pro Max comes in at 3969mAh.

Apple hasn’t specified the battery capacity of the new iPhone 12 range, but a regulatory filing with ANATEL, Brazil’s National Telecommunications Agency, suggests the ‌iPhone 12‌ has a 2815mAh battery and the iPhone 12‌ mini is rated at 2227mAh.

We still don’t know the consumption rate of the iPhone 12, but Apple says it will provide up to 17 hours of video playback, up to 11 hours of video streaming and up to 65 hours of audio playback.

Portable charger capacity

If you’re asking what does mAh mean when it comes to portable chargers or power banks, bigger mAh numbers mean more recharges for your iPhone, or the ability to charge bigger devices. A lower-capacity battery that’s fine for an iPhone, for example, won’t be able to charge a laptop computer.

As a rough guide to the number of charges you might expect, Belkin’s internal testing showed that one of its 5000mAh power banks will charge a device with a 1960mAh battery up to 1.5 times on a single charge, while a 10,000mAh model will charge it up to three times and a 15,000mAh one will charge it up to five times.

If it’s running power for a laptop you’re looking for, Cygnett says its 27,000mAh power bank can power a laptop for up to 16 hours.