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Battery life for 13" and 15" Macbook Pro
- Thread starter fokmik
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Not sure why I keep coming back for more... but... I've been reading from the real engineers about the variability in these processors. Prior processors had a more limited range of upclocking and base so there wasn't so much power consumption volatility. This one runs fast and hard on certain expected and sometimes unexpected processes. Those time estimates jump all over the place. 5 minutes ago I was at 5:25 remaining on 99% charge. At 98% I'm at 6:25. It don't mean ****. Use the % estimate, use the watts, ignore the noise. Do a real test on life. I am not an engineer. I don't know what I'm talking about. But I read and try to filter out truth from speculation.
Yep, it just installed over itself. I was prepared to install everything and found it didn't format the drive. It was quite amazing giving the result.
ok... so you're saying the percentage is fairly accurate? Because I've lost 23% in 55 minutes.
I personally didn't think it would work and was pleasantly surprised. For the record, I used migration assistant to go from Sierra on a 2015 13" to the 13" 2016 w/tb.
Yep, % should be pretty accurate. You are running some program or process or brightness level that is consuming a pretty good amount of power. Run Activity Monitor and see what it could be. Better yet, run Coconut Battery while opening apps one by one, wait a minute to get a consistent watts read, and keep an eye on it as you run apps. Your culprit will be identified. What watts are you normally running at? How does it jump around as you open/run active apps? Those questions are what you want to answer. If you don't like the answer because you need to run a high draw app on battery, then that's a different question on whether this setup will work.
You didn't pay as much attention to it. It basically just looks at your usage every so often and assuming you use it exactly like that, it's how much you would get. If you just launched safari and it did the calculation after, it may show you have 2 hours on 100% charge. If everything was closed and the screen dim, it could show 15. The point is, it's not too accurate unless you're doing exactly what you'll be doing until it dies. This includes how often you click a link in safari.
That's fine, it's bed time now and I will definitely run it in the morning. I don't need any high draw processes, all I'm running is safari and outlook at the moment. But as per your suggestion I will run it and see what it comes up with
Whoa, way too soon to tell but I just reinstalled Sierra as tjleonard suggested. Unplugged from power and Battery Health 2 and Apple are both telling me 14:20 remaining.
I did see a big increase in the predicted time remaining before when I did an SMC reset, but even then I think it was only 10-11 hours (of course I didn't get that much, it's just what it said right after I unplugged from power).
The other thing I've noticed is that power consumption as measured by mAH in Battery Health 2 is lower and more consistent. Even after opening Polymail, Fantastical 2, Slack, Safari, and Messages it is around 330 mAH. Given the size of the battery that would get me >10 hours on a charge.
One thing I did notice, though, is that when I opened Chrome the mAH went up >1000!! And I thought I remembered reading that Chrome had significantly improved power consumption.
I'll report back at the end of this charge. It's early days, but I'm cautiously optimistic.
Nice! The "tjleonard reinstall" is proven in two data points now. And now that you're "aware" of app specific power, I don't think you have anything to worry about in terms of reverting to crap battery.
Yeah, Chrome is a notorious power suck, but sadly I find Safari is worse in certain situations in the 16 MBP. Some ninja is running background videos or sounds on webpages, like MacRumors, and is sucking power like Chrome. One of the power efficiency updates I am waiting for from Apple. Chrome actually does better power-wise than Safari for me right now. I suspect the browsers are very dependent on the website content since I use them for different purposes.
My new machine has finished indexing and whatnot, so I figure I'll do a battery test on my 13" as part of the review I'm writing. Right now I'm surfing the forums and writing in TextEdit. I've got Mail and Messages open in the background but with no activity other than waiting for incoming messages. Screen brightness and keyboard backlighting are both set to 50%. Battery estimate is showing about 8:30 left at 97%.
Let's do some basic engineering math to validate that estimate...
Based on iFixit's teardown (https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Touch+Bar+Teardown/73480), the battery on the TouchBar 13" is a nominal 4314 mAh at 11.41 V. That gives us 49.22 Watt-hours of energy. CoconutBattery is showing a power draw of ~6.0 Watts, which should allow us to run for 8.2 hours, assuming 100% efficiency with no losses.
Conclusion: the battery estimate appears to be correct. Unfortunately, it also appears that Apple's quoted 10 hours of battery life is a very aggressive estimate. I'd like to know the specific configuration and usage scenarios that they used to come up with the 10-hour figure. I'm also wondering if my specific 3.3/16/512 configuration will naturally have a slightly lower battery life due to the upgraded components.
EDIT: I just plugged in my external drive to grab a file and noticed something: there's a slight power hit of 1-2 W, even though the drive has its own power supply and is connected through a powered USB hub. I'm suspecting that is due to the separate Intel Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt/USB-C controller chip.
Let's do some basic engineering math to validate that estimate...
Based on iFixit's teardown (https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Touch+Bar+Teardown/73480), the battery on the TouchBar 13" is a nominal 4314 mAh at 11.41 V. That gives us 49.22 Watt-hours of energy. CoconutBattery is showing a power draw of ~6.0 Watts, which should allow us to run for 8.2 hours, assuming 100% efficiency with no losses.
Conclusion: the battery estimate appears to be correct. Unfortunately, it also appears that Apple's quoted 10 hours of battery life is a very aggressive estimate. I'd like to know the specific configuration and usage scenarios that they used to come up with the 10-hour figure. I'm also wondering if my specific 3.3/16/512 configuration will naturally have a slightly lower battery life due to the upgraded components.
EDIT: I just plugged in my external drive to grab a file and noticed something: there's a slight power hit of 1-2 W, even though the drive has its own power supply and is connected through a powered USB hub. I'm suspecting that is due to the separate Intel Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt/USB-C controller chip.
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I have a question for you guys. Since most of you have access to a wall socket, isn't it healthier for the laptop to be powered by the adapter for the most part anyway? I mean, in the off chance that you don't, 7 or so hours isn't terrible. I would love to see software updates, especially for Safari to bring up that number but it isn't half bad right now.
That's exactly my result. Power usage seemed to slack off a lot quicker after reinstalling instead of sitting super high for long periods.
I was skeptical and was only doing it to say I did it. Very glad I did it now.
Weird, I have the 2nd base model 15" (which I'm returning) with the 455 and I'm pretty much getting the advertised 9-10 hours. The computer is completely stock from a software perspective (I've been 'trying it out' so I haven't installed anything other than what comes with Sierra and a few updates to iTunes). Been using with brightness at 75%, left the computer unplugged and sleeping overnight (and part of the day) and had no battery drain there either. Haven't done any resets of any kind.
No offense, but I don't think that's a good conclusion. I can guarantee you in the time since you've posted this, your time estimate has gone down AND up. Unless you stabilize your actions, the time estimate swings too much based on your very last action. The % estimate at least doesn't go UP ever. That's a fair gauge. You need to watch how much your watts fluctuate to really understand your battery life. Also, your i7 will definitely affect it, but jury is still out by how much. The i7 has a higher ceiling for power draw than the i5, so at some point(s) it will draw more.
Regarding the Apple tests and based on what you're running, the browser you use and the sites you visit have significant effect on the power draw. Regarding the drive, there will definitely be a power draw when plugged in, but it should stop unless you are continuously accessing data from it. You have to keep an eye on the watts to confirm what's drawing.
That doesn't make sense at all. They can easily produce 10 hours. You are making false claims.
Ten hour battery life is not guaranteed.
In regards to how Apple arrived at the "up to 10 hours" statement,
"Testing conducted by Apple in October 2016 using preproduction 2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based 15-inch MacBook Pro systems with a 256GB SSD and 16GB of RAM. The wireless web test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing 25 popular websites with display brightness set to 12 clicks from bottom or 75%. 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%. The standby test measures battery life by allowing a system, connected to a wireless network and signed in to an iCloud account, to enter standby mode with Safari and Mail applications launched and all system settings left at default. Battery life varies by use and configuration. See www.apple.com/batteries for more information."
http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/
Yes, this is just the initial estimate and wouldn't be indicative of a real battery test (which is still in progress). I intend on running the battery until the machine is close to shutdown (or I have to go to bed). 1.5 hours in, the battery is at 85% and showing 6:46 remaining.
I was getting 4-5, and I also have to go meeting to meeting where sitting next to an outlet isn't really an option.
Funny, I would think the same thing, especially since it charges so fast. I will rarely be away from power that long, if ever, but more battery is always better. For most, I think it's more about the principle and Apple's claims. But, many of us do get 9 hours with some minor setup and/or adjustments.