The Google Pixel 7 and 7 Pro are now available for purchase and our reviews are live to give you an impression of what you can expect. However, we keep learning more and more about the devices as time goes on. We’ve already complained about the Google Pixel 7 Pro’s battery life, and according to the latest findings, the display could be at fault.

XDA ran a number of tests on the Pixel 7 Pro in order to find out how efficient it is, corroborated by Android Police. That’s after the team’s Pixel 7 Pro reviewer Adam Conway noticed that his Pixel 7 Pro review units seemed to draw a disproportionate amount of power when used outside at high brightness levels. A display test then revealed that the Pixel 7 Pro draws about 3.5 to 4W at full regular brightness (about 600 nits), depending on which other components of the phone are active at the same time.

Other phones with similar displays, like the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra or even the Google Pixel 6 Pro, put this 4W number in perspective. The Samsung phone only draws more than 4W at a brightness of more than 1100 nits, which is considerably brighter than the Pixel 7 Pro at 600 nits. The Pixel 6 Pro hits 4W of power consumption at 800 nits, which is still brighter than the Pixel 7 Pro.

We can corroborate these findings with a Pixel 7 Pro of our own, which exhibits the same high power draw found by XDA. We can also confirm that the Pixel 7 doesn’t share this issue, with its display making do with much less power.

The findings are in line with our experience when we tested the Pixel 7 Pro. In our review, the battery is constantly missing its “all-day” estimates by a bit. We haven’t had a single day where the battery was above 20% when we put it back on the charger for the night with about five hours of screen-on time on average. This isn’t terrible, but other phones offer much better stats. Interestingly enough, it's not like we used the phone outdoors all the time—it was more of a mixed-used situation. In any case, the omission of ultra-fast charging we see on phones like the OnePlus 10T makes that a bigger problem, with the Pixel 7 Pro taking more than an hour and a half to fully charge.

It’s good to hear that at lower brightness levels, the issue isn’t as bad. The problem will only become apparent when you’re someone who uses their phone outside a lot.