Battery life for 13" and 15" Macbook Pro

[danieleilertsen]

Lemon = defective unit

You think so?

Allot of people are talking about the same issues? Saying it could be file vault or other software related issues

 

[agazoo]

Seems to be improving for me;

After the wipe I am getting (or I thinking I am getting, can't test it fully today) closer to 9 hours usable;

One thing that has changed in particular is a graphics card usage; dGPU isn't being used at all today (yesterday per activity monitor I was always on with just Safari running or nothing running at all)

I installed all my common stuff which is AI PS PR AE ID Capture One Office stuff plus small utilities; I had to shutdown all the adobe background garbage;

I tried to do some generic work (some light editing, e.t.c.) for about one hour; The estimates dropped to about 7 hours at full charge which is acceptable as I also had some downloading going on;

Reinstall or not, it's getting there it seems ...

 

[danieleilertsen]

I did a full reinstall, turned off file vault and no flickering anymore! Thanks man. this is great, and this is proof this is a software issue and not hardware?

BUT, every time I reinstall I get a messages stating (my bad English, its stated in Norwegian)

"A crucial software update needs to be done to the Mac, but something wrong happened when installing. the Mac can't be used before this update is installed."

I hit "try again" and it instals fine.

Is this something I should be worried about?

 

[aaron5566]

I'm getting 6 hours estimated after watching a 45 minute video using MPlayerX at about 50% brightness. Playing music and doing nothing else for about 20 minutes seems to get an estimate of 12 hours. This doesn't feel like a very accurate estimate.

 

[elvin_hu]

I've been using Lightroom and Audition this afternoon and it's been lasting for like 4 hours but it's been charging for a phone for half an hour so that took a lot of battery I guess. Now it has 28% left and 0:45 remaining. (an SD card reader has been connected too)

 

[ah93]

13" TB and AWFUL battery life. how can I check if iCloud is syncing or something?

 

[titleistman18]

+1 having horrible battery on my 13" tMBP.

 

[yillbs]

13" TB and AWFUL battery life. how can I check if iCloud is syncing or something?

go to your settings, click on ICLOUD, and see that's enabled. It's pretty idiot proof.

 

[malikkamran]

go to your settings, click on ICLOUD, and see that's enabled. It's pretty idiot proof.

What battery life you get on 13 touch bar

 

[Jreinhal]

Here is what I got today on battery with brightness set to 75% doing Xcode, video playback, and web browsing (2016 15" base model MacBook Pro):

(Edit: This is after an SMC reset and Sierra reinstall)

 

[tjleonard]

oh, do you have iCloud keychain setup?

Yep

 

[badlydrawnboy]

I did the Sierra reinstall yesterday. At first it seemed like battery life dramatically improved. However, since then I've been on battery for 2:51, and I am down to 47%. That's not very good.

Granted, it has been sleeping for about 24 of the past 27 hours. Each time I put it to sleep, and wake it up, it seems to lose a good 5% or more of battery. I don't recall sleep draining that much of my battery on the 2013 MBA.

 

[BBD90]

Dave2D review. Max 15 inch MacBook Pro. He mention he gets 8 hour light browsing Safari but 2.5 hours in heavy use. In heavy use he says that's a 20% reduction in battery life compared to 2015 model.

 

[xspin]

Just did Sierra Re-Install. Going to fully charge my computer and report back tomorrow.

 

[MH01]

hmmmm I've done mostly light tasks, and will not judge yet, but compared to my work 2015 model, the 2016 15" has poor battery performance so far

 

[thesaint024]

I did the Sierra reinstall yesterday. At first it seemed like battery life dramatically improved. However, since then I've been on battery for 2:51, and I am down to 47%. That's not very good.

Granted, it has been sleeping for about 24 of the past 27 hours. Each time I put it to sleep, and wake it up, it seems to lose a good 5% or more of battery. I don't recall sleep draining that much of my battery on the 2013 MBA.

Even though I've solved my battery issues for the most part, I also seem to get greater than expected drain from sleep. I will lose about 5-10% when sleeping overnight. I think that's excessive when I think I read 20 day standby? I wonder if Activity Monitor will tell me anything.

Again, everyone thinks Safari is a slam dunk for battery savings but it's not. Webpages are not created equal from a power drain perspective. Watch the watts when opening new pages.

 

[tjleonard]

Even though I've solved my battery issues for the most part, I also seem to get greater than expected drain from sleep. I will lose about 5-10% when sleeping overnight. I think that's excessive when I think I read 20 day standby? I wonder if Activity Monitor will tell me anything.

Again, everyone thinks Safari is a slam dunk for battery savings but it's not. Webpages are not created equal from a power drain perspective. Watch the watts when opening new pages.

I think I'm getting a bit too much drain while the laptop is sleeping...given the success of simply reinstalling Sierra, I'm sure there is a software issue and it's not hardware.
[doublepost=1480061592][/doublepost]

Here is what I got today on battery with brightness set to 75% doing Xcode, video playback, and web browsing (2016 15" base model MacBook Pro):

Was that until your battery died?

 

[monkeydax]

I think I'm getting a bit too much drain while the laptop is sleeping...given the success of simply reinstalling Sierra, I'm sure there is a software issue and it's not hardware.
[doublepost=1480061592][/doublepost]
Was that until your battery died?

You should give it a try!

 

[creamz]

I went to full battery at 2:42pm est. First 'go round with the battery since I bought the MBP on Sunday.

As soon as I disconnected power, battery estimate (which doesn't mean much of anything) said 5:25.

You need to use for like 30 mins like how you would use for the remaining time to get a better estimate. Estimates starts slow on first unplug and gradually climbs up based on your current usage patterns.

 

[monkeydax]

You need to use for like 30 mins like how you would use for the remaining time to get a better estimate. Estimates starts slow on first unplug and gradually climbs up based on your current usage patterns.

Also, I think the estimates are quite a poor..estimate. Even on my 2013 rMBP now, the indicator also fluctuates significantly based on what I'm doing, if i'm scrolling through a site, vs. watching a youtube video, it can vary like 2 hours within an hour. Best is to use a logger to track that.

 

[creamz]

I am just as perplexed at the discrepancy in battery life too, especially after the 1st and 2nd cycles where a lot of background setup processes are running. I was in the same spot during my first couple cycles, than I started doing the troubleshooting. I suggest you guys do it too to end the mystery. Aren't you all curious as to why your battery drains so fast? Answers are right in System Monitor and Coconut Battery. Just a small change in behavior, conscious or subconscious, will get you battery life you expect. I'm not running a unrealistic, battery saving setup or anything. I'm just more aware of what has been sucking power. Example is iTunes running music from my network drive is more power intensive than Spotify off the internet. Who knew, and now I have comfort knowing that won't be an issue on the go since my network drive won't be connected anyway. 6.4 watts in the screenshot at this time is on the high end of my mobile use. When just browsing Safari, I'm usually under 5. Extra power for Spotify, but all the other crap and more is always running.

My point is, instead of just assuming it may be defective, you can know definitively if it is a specific app or something that is causing battery woes, and you can just find a workaround. It might make sense because the new OS, hardware, app combination may not be optimized and may need an update. Or you can just return it and wait it out. You are completely justified in saying the battery life is worse than last year's larger battery model (because it is) or that you shouldn't have to do this nerdy troubleshooting (because you shouldn't). But Apple didn't lie about the battery estimate of "up to 10 hours". There's a lot more variability in this processor in terms of power usage, so the estimates and expectations just haven't "matured" yet.

View attachment 674308

I'm pretty much agreeing on this. I had one experience when I was leaving the Mac Storage Info window open in the background while reading some websites on Safari. I had the smcfan running and I was surprised to see the temp so high up on a normal browsing activity. I close that info window down and sure enough the temp drops back to what it should. I did not notice how much the battery drop though.
[doublepost=1480064859][/doublepost]

Also, I think the estimates are quite a poor..estimate. Even on my 2013 rMBP now, the indicator also fluctuates significantly based on what I'm doing, if i'm scrolling through a site, vs. watching a youtube video, it can vary like 2 hours within an hour. Best is to use a logger to track that.

Yeah, can't deny that.

 

[ah93]

I'm pretty much agreeing on this. I had one experience when I was leaving the Mac Storage Info window open in the background while reading some websites on Safari. I had the smcfan running and I was surprised to see the temp so high up on a normal browsing activity. I close that info window down and sure enough the temp drops back to what it should. I did not notice how much the battery drop though.
[doublepost=1480064859][/doublepost]

Yeah, can't deny that.

what on earth is going on with this. 3:19 on 100% with just safari open?

 

[agazoo]

what on earth is going on with this. 3:19 on 100% with just safari open?

Bad Java script?
You do have some transmission going on though ... (6.3kb/s)

 

[monkeydax]

what on earth is going on with this. 3:19 on 100% with just safari open?

Also, it takes some time to show an exact time remaining indication. The first estimate after you unplug may not be accurate at all

 

[Jreinhal]

I think I'm getting a bit too much drain while the laptop is sleeping...given the success of simply reinstalling Sierra, I'm sure there is a software issue and it's not hardware.
[doublepost=1480061592][/doublepost]
Was that until your battery died?

Yes, to the point of the computer shutting down.