my 13 bt is delivered by Wednesday, I'll give it a try for a week and then I will probably order a ntb. so sad..
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Battery life for 13" and 15" Macbook Pro
- Thread starter fokmik
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Yes it is. I really like TouchID and although the jury is out on how useful the TB will be, it does make some things easier/faster (changing brightness, volume, scrubbing through photos, etc.).
I don't want the added weight and size of the 15", so like you I'll probably go with a non-TB 13".
It is typically 14 days from the date it ships. I know apple is in their holiday return period, so I would probably call and see if these are eligible for that.
Another update. I did a second SMC reset, charged to full, and unplugged. Here's what I'm seeing now:
- Discharging with 3.27 watts with Safari, Fantastical 2, and Coconut Battery open
- Time remaining 17:32!!!
- Something about power management is screwed up on these tMBPs
- SMC reset has a measurable impact on power consumption, and thus battery life, but appears to be temporary—at least in my case
I think you actually have through January 8th to return.
http://www.apple.com/shop/help/returns_refund
Edit: Just reread your post and saw that you said something about the holiday returns. Their return policy does say that if you receive it between Nov 10th and Dec 25, it's considered the holiday period.
[doublepost=1479675473][/doublepost]Used Safari and iMessage, 50% brightness...
Used 1h 7m on battery and at 75% battery right now (started at 100%).
I think it's 14'from date delivered. Check the online policy. The holiday policy is longer but if one ordered the first week they were available it was prior to the special period.
Definitely seemed to do something for me, both times. After my 2nd SMC reset Coconut Battery still showing 3.22 watts consumption, which would be >15 hours of battery life (not going to happen, but interesting). Apple's prediction is still >17 hours.
I don't expect to get nearly that much, but prior to the second SMC reset I was seeing 6.5-8 watts power consumption and estimates of more like 6-7 hours. This is with only Safari, Fantastical 2, and Coconut Battery open though.
When I open Polymail, Slack, Messages, 2Do, and Calculator, consumption goes up to 5.14 watts... and then in a minute, 11 watts, then 6 watts, then 5.8 watts where it seemed to settle for a while.
Will see how it goes for the rest of the day.
I agree with the people saying here that with a smaller battery, the range of activities you do will have a bigger impact to battery life in these new MBPs compared to the previous Macbook Pros and even including the Air.
This is similar to Automatic GPU switching that MBPs have been doing to "save" battery life. Skylake has the ability to boost performance up and down depending on usage, but it remains to be seen how wildly these swings can be. But then the (much) smaller battery just makes the margin of error more pronounced.
I think the mistake by Apple here is advertising it to be 10 hours but really having tight parameters on their tests. I have no doubt this can get 10 hours on their battery tests, but the range of work that are expected from these pros won't get it to close 10 hours. Then you compound the error by saying "All-day battery life" which I am not sure now what they mean by.
I am pretty sure the MBA will be the last Apple laptop that can reach a clean 12 hours if they continue with this thin and light bs. This is sad because I believe the number of people who want more battery far outnumber the people who want more power, but it seems like Apple is serving neither with this thin and light schtick.
This is similar to Automatic GPU switching that MBPs have been doing to "save" battery life. Skylake has the ability to boost performance up and down depending on usage, but it remains to be seen how wildly these swings can be. But then the (much) smaller battery just makes the margin of error more pronounced.
I think the mistake by Apple here is advertising it to be 10 hours but really having tight parameters on their tests. I have no doubt this can get 10 hours on their battery tests, but the range of work that are expected from these pros won't get it to close 10 hours. Then you compound the error by saying "All-day battery life" which I am not sure now what they mean by.
I am pretty sure the MBA will be the last Apple laptop that can reach a clean 12 hours if they continue with this thin and light bs. This is sad because I believe the number of people who want more battery far outnumber the people who want more power, but it seems like Apple is serving neither with this thin and light schtick.
From Apple's website:
Holiday Return Policy
Items purchased at the Apple Online Store that are received between November 10, 2016 and December 25, 2016, may be returned through January 8, 2017.
I might just hold onto this until then since my 2009 MBP is pretty much dead. Wait and see if theres a software fix for the crazy estimates or something. If nothing comes then I might have no choice but to return it in January for a non touch bar model.
Holiday Return Policy
Items purchased at the Apple Online Store that are received between November 10, 2016 and December 25, 2016, may be returned through January 8, 2017.
I might just hold onto this until then since my 2009 MBP is pretty much dead. Wait and see if theres a software fix for the crazy estimates or something. If nothing comes then I might have no choice but to return it in January for a non touch bar model.
To reset SMC...
- Shutdown your MacBook Air / MacBook Pro
- Connect the power adapter to the Mac
- On the MacBook / Pro’s keyboard, hold down the Shift+Control+Option keys and the Power button at the same time
- Release all keys and the power button at the same time – the little light on the MagSafe adapter may change colors briefly to indicate the SMC has reset
- Boot your Mac as usual
To reset PVRAM...
- Shut down your Mac.
- Find Command (⌘), Option, P, and R on your keyboard.
- Turn on your Mac.
- Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys immediately after you turn on your Mac.
- Hold these keys down for at least 20 seconds to ensure that your Mac completes the process correctly.
- Release the keys.
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appreciate that man, I'm going to give it a try because I'm getting terrible battery life.
The new 13" MacBook Pros without touchbar have more power efficient processors (15 Watts maximum consumption) than the previous generation. Hence, the battery life is pretty much on par with the previous models, even though the battery is smaller.
The new 13" MacBook Pro with touchbar has the same (or smaller) battery as the one without touchbar. BUT the processors consume up to 28 Watts of power when used. This means, that the variance on your battery time results fluctuate significantly because the difference between low-power states and high-power states of the CPU is higher. This also means that the MacBook Pro with touchbar can never reach the batterylife of the one without touchbar when used for more than just very light tasks.
The MacBook Pro without touch bar reaches the 10 hrs. The one with touchbar has to reach significantly less because of higher power consumption.
The SMC reset _seems_ to work because it resets the calculation of the batterytime. Do not be fooled here that this somehow solves the problem. The reported findings of alleged increases are due to two causes:
1. Variance: You can never replicate the same workload for proper testing. Therefore results may be higher when only conducting one test run.
2. Placebo: You want the battery life to increase and the timer shows you that it _allegedly_ increased.
It is really easy: The Touchbar 13" MacBook Pro has higher power consumption but the same battery --> significantly less batterylife.
The new 13" MacBook Pro with touchbar has the same (or smaller) battery as the one without touchbar. BUT the processors consume up to 28 Watts of power when used. This means, that the variance on your battery time results fluctuate significantly because the difference between low-power states and high-power states of the CPU is higher. This also means that the MacBook Pro with touchbar can never reach the batterylife of the one without touchbar when used for more than just very light tasks.
The MacBook Pro without touch bar reaches the 10 hrs. The one with touchbar has to reach significantly less because of higher power consumption.
The SMC reset _seems_ to work because it resets the calculation of the batterytime. Do not be fooled here that this somehow solves the problem. The reported findings of alleged increases are due to two causes:
1. Variance: You can never replicate the same workload for proper testing. Therefore results may be higher when only conducting one test run.
2. Placebo: You want the battery life to increase and the timer shows you that it _allegedly_ increased.
It is really easy: The Touchbar 13" MacBook Pro has higher power consumption but the same battery --> significantly less batterylife.
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The battery life is the main annoyance that keeps me from buying the touch bar version. If I buy a laptop it is an investment, it needs to perform well several years down the road. And 6hrs of battery doesn't cut it really. Especially not after some years when 6hrs turns 4hrs. I would like to have some more facts about this battery life, or apple releasing a patch.
I read somewhere else in the last few days (forget where) that an Apple engineer said that the battery life estimates have gotten all the more harder (unreliable) because of the way modern processors operate.
Watching the wattage usage on Coconut as I go along, I definitely see how battery life experience can vary widely, as the watts consumed can change significantly from minute to minute. I'm sure just using a particular application could vary battery life by hours.
I am still getting 10+ hours on my 15" (after SMC reset and disabling auto-brightness) doing average WiFi Safari and email.
I am still suspicious that I was stuck drawing around 14-15 watts this morning with everything closed, until I rebooted. Then it returned to lower levels. I think there is some underlying OS issue that is drawing power.
Watching the wattage usage on Coconut as I go along, I definitely see how battery life experience can vary widely, as the watts consumed can change significantly from minute to minute. I'm sure just using a particular application could vary battery life by hours.
I am still getting 10+ hours on my 15" (after SMC reset and disabling auto-brightness) doing average WiFi Safari and email.
I am still suspicious that I was stuck drawing around 14-15 watts this morning with everything closed, until I rebooted. Then it returned to lower levels. I think there is some underlying OS issue that is drawing power.
So I got about 6.5 hours today. Apps definitely have a huge impact I was going through a lot of pictures just using the photos app and that was killing 20%/hour about 2 and 1/2 hours killed half my battery here. If I switch to primarily browsing I can get around 10%/hour and I got about 4 hours with the rest of the battery. I just switched off the auto brightness since I usually don't like that anyway and that seemed to help a bit even if I go back into photos. Turned mail to check every 5 minutes since I don't care about emails as much and that seemed to be taking up power. Curious to see how things look tomorrow after the changes.
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Parallels will destroy your MacBook lol, if you need windows get a windows laptop :/
U tell the CIO of my company?
Only for VPN and Outlook actually.[doublepost=1479694071][/doublepost]
Really don't understand your comment... What is on me? That I run a normal parallel instance to use a Mac in an enterprise context like many others? Well it's a fact that I am now at 16%...
You know...on the plus side...charging the battery is ridiculously fast...We're all focusing on the battery drain. I've had this thing plugged up for 10 minutes and gained 20% battery (30-50%). That's at least 25 minutes worth of battery!
Well, if you can demonstrate that on previous MBP models you can get the 9 hours of advertised battery life when using parallels, then we can have a conversation. That conversation would essentially just be people here telling you that you're either running something else that's excessively intensive, or that you have a defective machine. Getting the battery life you're getting is, as I said above, indicative of abnormal behavior on your part. The battery life estimates are based on light use.U tell the CIO of my company?
[doublepost=1479694071][/doublepost]
Really don't understand your comment... What is on me? That I run a normal parallel instance to use a Mac in an enterprise context like many others? Well it's a fact that I am now at 16%...
U tell the CIO of my company?
[doublepost=1479694071][/doublepost]
Really don't understand your comment... What is on me? That I run a normal parallel instance to use a Mac in an enterprise context like many others? Well it's a fact that I am now at 16%...
My first battery cycle down (visiting this thread because of my terrible battery life) was around 4 hours running just simple stuff like Safari, Sublime Text, Sequel Pro, etc. Coconut battery said the discharge was ~35 watts which was insane. I did an SMC reset after draining the battery and recharging to 10% or so, Coconut battery is now reporting 7.33 watts at the moment w/ a few apps open. Don't know if it was the reboot or the SMC reset but hopefully this cycle will go better.