2016 MBP 15 to 2023 MBP 16: Worth the upgrade?

[capelesshero]

Hi Everyone,

I've had my 2016 tb MBP since the moment they were released and it's been a dream. I love having native Windows 10 and macOS for when I need either or. And I just replaced the battery with a new one which extended the battery life a little.

However, I just started grad school (MSCS) and take my MacBook to campus for note-taking, homework, etc. and it's barely giving me ~ 3 hours of battery life. Apps that are always running are Chrome, ItelliJ, PyCharm. Brand new my Mac was advertised as having 10 hours of battery life iirc and it's not even close to that number anymore with the new 7000 mAh battery. So I'm thinking the apps are more taxing on the CPU and GPU than they were before, draining my battery quickly.

So the question for the 2021/2023 MBP M1/M2 owners: Are you getting your advertised battery life of 15+ for web browsing, etc?

Because even if it's realistically 8-10 hours, that'd be a game changer for me.

These are my current specs:

tldr; what are your realistic battery lives?

Thanks in advance,

Anthony

 

[iMacDragon]

I haven't seen a single review or comment state that battery life wasn't massively better in every usage case scenerio than all intel macbooks, one of the main reasons I'm upgrading.

 

[Fishrrman]

"2016 MBP 15 to 2023 MBP 16: Worth the upgrade?"

YES.

 

[capelesshero]

I haven't seen a single review or comment state that battery life wasn't massively better in every usage case scenerio than all intel macbooks, one of the main reasons I'm upgrading.

"2016 MBP 15 to 2023 MBP 16: Worth the upgrade?"

YES.

Yeah fair enough. I searched some YouTube videos regarding battery life and I think the best video I was able to find was a reviewer playing video games, playing a video, and another arbitrary task on battery power only. I guess I was just liking for a bit more insight in the actual metrics.

 

[BeatCrazy]

You'll never fully understand just how much of a 'hot box' and battery hog your 2016 MBP is, until you try Apple Silicon.

 

[CasualFanboy]

The battery life on my Macbook M1 Pro 16", 2021 model, has never been _great_, but it is a better computer all the way around than the 2016, which is what I had before this one.

Except for the new post-Catalina interface changes, which I hate just as much now as I did from the beginning. But what can you do. I don't want the hassle of running an unsupported version where I can't even install brew packages without major hassles.

 

[capelesshero]

The battery life on my Macbook M1 Pro 16", 2021 model, has never been _great_, but it is a better computer all the way around than the 2016, which is what I had before this one.

Except for the new post-Catalina interface changes, which I hate just as much now as I did from the beginning. But what can you do. I don't want the hassle of running an unsupported version where I can't even install brew packages without major hassles.

What's your ballpark battery life in a single charge?

 

[Beau10]

Hi Everyone,

So the question for the 2021/2023 MBP M1/M2 owners: Are you getting your advertised battery life of 15+ for web browsing, etc?

FWIW, I only get around 6-8 on my 16" M1 Pro... but that's with screen fairly bright, frequent Teams calls, and occasional intensive tasks as software dev. That's about twice the runtime I got on my previous 16" i9.

When just doing basic web browsing (assuming a Chrome tab isn't off in the ether), at about 50% brightness, it does seem to report ~15 hours.

 

[pshufd]

I get about 6-7 hours with my pro trading tools running. My 2015 MacBook Pro 15 would last about two hours with that workload. I get about 12 hours of battery life doing casual stuff. I have an M1 Pro MacBook Pro 16. I've always had Low Power Mode enabled on it.

 

[CasualFanboy]

What's your ballpark battery life in a single charge?

Damn, sorry that I never answered this.

Honestly I have no idea. It's always at home and plugged in most of the time. And I use Al Dente with sailing down to 35%, and a max charge of 80%.

If I had to guess, and this is a wild guess, it's probably in the range of 6-7 hours, unless I'm doing something more intense like running a VM or Android Studio or something like that. Then obviously it would be a little less. This is of course just a guess though. It could be slightly longer, but there's no way this thing could go 15 hours under normal load.

 

[Yebubbleman]

One thing to consider: Pretty much every Intel MacBook Pro that had both discrete and integrated graphics and automatic graphics switching would only present the discrete graphics to Windows. The only exception to this is the one release of Intel 16-inch MacBook Pro. So, your battery life in Windows will always suffer because even on the lighter tasks, Windows is using the AMD Radeon GPU and not the Intel HD 530 graphics.

That has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that any Apple Silicon 16-inch MacBook Pro is going to have immensely better battery life than any Intel 15-inch or 16-inch MacBook Pro, as far as macOS is concerned. Though, do keep in mind that if dual-booting with Windows is something you care about, that goes away with Apple Silicon.

 

[CalMin]

You will be delighted with the upgrade. But... make sure that you check out the 16" in person before purchasing - it's a substantial amount bigger than your current 15" and may be a dealbreaker if you travel frequently.