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Battery life for 13" and 15" Macbook Pro
- Thread starter fokmik
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- batteries macbook 15"
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2017 tbMBP 8gb 512
Averaging 6-7 hours using it as a laptop (not plugged into stuff), infrequent video, mostly powerpoint, Evernote, safari, preview running, plus Dashlane and dropbox. Brightness usually 50% or less.
I love everything except the battery. I followed this thread for 8 months before buying and had convinced myself that it must be the people running peripherals, or editing video, or doing other large scale production work - but no. It's just a 6-7 hour battery.
So it goes.
Averaging 6-7 hours using it as a laptop (not plugged into stuff), infrequent video, mostly powerpoint, Evernote, safari, preview running, plus Dashlane and dropbox. Brightness usually 50% or less.
I love everything except the battery. I followed this thread for 8 months before buying and had convinced myself that it must be the people running peripherals, or editing video, or doing other large scale production work - but no. It's just a 6-7 hour battery.
So it goes.
My early 2015 rMBP 13” still gets around 8-9 hours of usage. I mostly just browse the web, watch videos, YouTube etc. I’m on High Sierra now. Battery life is actually pretty good. The main reason I’m not buying the 2016 tbMBP is because of subpar battery life.
I get about 8-9 hours doing much the same on my 2016 13" TB/i7 MBP. Brightness is always about 3/4 or higher. 10 hours would be better, but I've learned not to worry about it.
So it is it then.
I get about 4hrs at most on my 2016 13'' nTB with doing normal stuff, web, twitter app open, occasional media/ YouTube.
That's a shame. But looking at the mAh, the 13'' versions have about 4500 mAh. That's like a phablet smartphone.
Why can't they pack at least double in a laptop even if it's this thin?
Really hope 2018 versions come with larger terraced batteries.
The best news is that High Sierra came alone with a much better suspend/hibernation profile and now I can safely put my MBP to sleep without worrying that the battery will be down by 10-20% in a couple of days.
Getting 1% loss overnight is much better than 5-10% I had with Sierra.
Getting 1% loss overnight is much better than 5-10% I had with Sierra.
I have to conclude Apple lied about the battery life of the Touchbar MacBook Pros.
I have a late 2016 MBP. Sought help from Apple Support over short battery life at only 115 charge cycles out of 1000 claimed). I've spent hours on the phone with senior support, even sent the thing to Memphis for repair. They "couldn't duplicate the problem". They made me jump through many hoops until I ended up with a re-formatted drive and a virgin install of Sierra (my cad won't run on High Sierra but have not installed anything except the os yet).
To be fair to Apple I tried to duplicate the settings that Apple used to determine that “up to 10 hours” of runtime is marketable. Apple marketing footnotes say "The iTunes movie playback test measures battery life by playing back HD 1080p content with display brightness set to 12 clicks from bottom or 75%."
I downloaded Blade Runner movie from iTunes.
Set screen brightness to “12 clicks up from dim”.
Quit everything.
Nothing attached to any port.
Battery fully charged. (123 charge cycles now after wasting a half dozen on duplicate tests)
Set screen to stay on (as in watching a movie).
Double clicked on the Blade Runner mp4.
Set sound level to medium.
Set QuickTime Player to full screen.
Checked in every two hours or so.
When the low battery warning indicator came on I launched Activity Monitor and did screen captures of all 5 panes.
Time on battery 5:13 with 10 minutes remaining.
This is a far cry from the advertised "up to 10 hours" but it seems to be typical from other user's reports.
I've been buying Apple computers since the Mac SE. You could fairly accuse Apple of over-optimism back then but I wouldn't have said they lied. Now I can honestly say they lied to us.
I have a late 2016 MBP. Sought help from Apple Support over short battery life at only 115 charge cycles out of 1000 claimed). I've spent hours on the phone with senior support, even sent the thing to Memphis for repair. They "couldn't duplicate the problem". They made me jump through many hoops until I ended up with a re-formatted drive and a virgin install of Sierra (my cad won't run on High Sierra but have not installed anything except the os yet).
To be fair to Apple I tried to duplicate the settings that Apple used to determine that “up to 10 hours” of runtime is marketable. Apple marketing footnotes say "The iTunes movie playback test measures battery life by playing back HD 1080p content with display brightness set to 12 clicks from bottom or 75%."
I downloaded Blade Runner movie from iTunes.
Set screen brightness to “12 clicks up from dim”.
Quit everything.
Nothing attached to any port.
Battery fully charged. (123 charge cycles now after wasting a half dozen on duplicate tests)
Set screen to stay on (as in watching a movie).
Double clicked on the Blade Runner mp4.
Set sound level to medium.
Set QuickTime Player to full screen.
Checked in every two hours or so.
When the low battery warning indicator came on I launched Activity Monitor and did screen captures of all 5 panes.
Time on battery 5:13 with 10 minutes remaining.
This is a far cry from the advertised "up to 10 hours" but it seems to be typical from other user's reports.
I've been buying Apple computers since the Mac SE. You could fairly accuse Apple of over-optimism back then but I wouldn't have said they lied. Now I can honestly say they lied to us.
I'm getting around 8 hours with my 2017 13inch tb mbp and this is mostly safary, emails, notes, pages here and there youtube videos and iTunes. (The brightness is around 50% most of the time)
ive been getting anywhere from 3 hours when editing in FCPX to over 8 when on the internet. my brightness is around 50 percent most of the time and I have iTunes, Spark, Photos open at all times. I know this isn't the 20 that apple said but 8 is still damn good and I bet I could squeak 10 by closing other apps and so on.
Update on battery life on my 2016 13" TB MBP: it's shockingly bad now.
Yesterday I had a 100% charge before getting on a plane. After watching just 2 hours of video in iTunes I was down to ~15-20% charge.
I got home and charged overnight. This morning I have been using my computer for about 1.5 hours. I've been syncing/downloading some files from Dropbox, web browsing, email—and I'm down to 59%.
I wish I had just kept my 2013 Macbook Air. I was still getting about 10 hours of battery life on that after 3 years (I was getting >13 hours when I first bought it). I would gladly trade my retina screen, and the worthless Touch Bar, for that additional battery life.
I really hope the 2018 Macbook Pro addresses this.
Yesterday I had a 100% charge before getting on a plane. After watching just 2 hours of video in iTunes I was down to ~15-20% charge.
I got home and charged overnight. This morning I have been using my computer for about 1.5 hours. I've been syncing/downloading some files from Dropbox, web browsing, email—and I'm down to 59%.
I wish I had just kept my 2013 Macbook Air. I was still getting about 10 hours of battery life on that after 3 years (I was getting >13 hours when I first bought it). I would gladly trade my retina screen, and the worthless Touch Bar, for that additional battery life.
I really hope the 2018 Macbook Pro addresses this.
given apple's slow design innovation a newer laptop may not be a big leap forward for you. Be careful and do the research. Just saying a medium increase in processing power can not offset the frustration of a bad keyboard, track pad, USBc connectors or flaky GPU...
there may be one model made a few years ago that will match your intended usage better than the newest design.
I've gotten over the keyboard (which I didn't like at first, and still don't prefer to the older style). No issues with trackpad or GPU, but now that you mention it, have had occasional problems with USB-c. The other issue that bugs me is that wifi is very slow to connect and flaky with any network other than my home one. If I'm at an airport or hotel it takes forever to join, and sometimes won't join at all. I haven't seen much discussion of this in general, so maybe it's my machine.
I did hear that the next MBPs might have a processor that is significantly more power efficient, so I'm hoping that translates into better battery life. I think the TB is useless, but I do love Touch ID. I use 1Password and have a very long master password that is a pain to type out all the time. So if they could improve battery life by a couple of hours (maybe this is a pipe dream) I'd probably stick with the MBP.
If not, I may just buy a Macbook Air this next time and live without Touch ID and retina. I don't really need the full power of a MBP because my main computer is an iMac 5k.
But uh oh, just realized I'm now using my MBP to drive a 5k LG display in my WeWork office. I guess that means I'm stuck with a MBP? Or can I use a Thunderbolt dock from OWC to drive the display? Anyone know?
I got my MacBook Pro 13' TB 2017 last week Thursday night so I haven't had a lot of time with it. But I do know taking notes in class for 1.5 hours results in 80% of the battery being left after a full charge (so 20% usage). Mind you, this is pretty light usage.
I'm less than impressed with this battery because my MacBook Air 11' got 12 hours easily with the same usage (I know it's a different computer) - but like others said in the thread, Apple usually under-estimates battery life.
Wifi has been horrible on my MBP 13' as well as my wife's MBP 13' (same model).
This MBP 13' TB 2017 does charge REALLY fast and I now have a ton of USB C chargers everywhere finally.
Also, if coconutBattery is more accurate - Apple's battery management system WAY overestimates this battery - sometimes a 6-8% difference. I haven't done any deep discharges yet but if my 1.5 hours of usage is estimated out - I'd see 7.5 hours of battery with light to medium usage.
That said, even with a 4 hour class, I never got close to using any of my battery life, so I can live with it. Fun watching this thing supercharge with the 87w Apple charging brick.
I'm less than impressed with this battery because my MacBook Air 11' got 12 hours easily with the same usage (I know it's a different computer) - but like others said in the thread, Apple usually under-estimates battery life.
Wifi has been horrible on my MBP 13' as well as my wife's MBP 13' (same model).
This MBP 13' TB 2017 does charge REALLY fast and I now have a ton of USB C chargers everywhere finally.
Also, if coconutBattery is more accurate - Apple's battery management system WAY overestimates this battery - sometimes a 6-8% difference. I haven't done any deep discharges yet but if my 1.5 hours of usage is estimated out - I'd see 7.5 hours of battery with light to medium usage.
That said, even with a 4 hour class, I never got close to using any of my battery life, so I can live with it. Fun watching this thing supercharge with the 87w Apple charging brick.
I had a lot of issue with my 2016 with the OG battery. This past week I had the keyboard and therefor the battery replaced and so far ive been getting between 6-8 hours of general use whereas I used to get around 2 hours max. I’m wondering if a lot of the issues were due to a bad string of batteries.
Working on Blackboard, google docs, and grading and imputing grades on a school grading program.