are you saying that Apple made the right tradeoff?

No?

Someone made a claim that controlling the hardware and software stack was the driver for being able to do well, powerwise.

I'm saying that controlling the hardware and software stack probably had less to do with this performance than the GPU only needing to push 40% as many pixels. I would also bet the overall hardware PM is better in Apple's chips.

Software wise, there is only so much you can do that has any real impact, given that screen is 40% of power and cell is another 20%.

Past that, only real way to save power is often to make stuff run faster.

But to give you some perspective, if you take any of these phones, turn off cell usage and shove them in a drawer, they should last at least a week.

but given all that do you think apple made the right tradeoff? between ppi and battery that is.

Maybe? The truth is I feel like it didn't matter what they chose.

Apple is very good at convincing people of what they want (i don't think they simply give people what people already wanted). In a case like this, IMHO, they could have had slightly better battery life than the 5S, and said "we've packed a lot more power in the same battery life", and people would have likely been fine with it.