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Battery life for 13" and 15" Macbook Pro

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bdspilot

macrumors newbie
Nov 14, 2011
27
4
Hi Guys, been watching this thread for a couple of weeks. Just got my 13" i5 512 8GB TB MBP, was worried about battery life so ran a couple of test. heres what I found on mine. 8H17M (6watts) doing a movie loop in iTunes.

As a comparison I did the same test on my 2013 MacBook Pro: Brightness 12 clicks(75%), Keyboard off, Volume 8 Clicks (50%) 2013 Macbook (Health 86%) 6h 44M 9.1watts 7H 50M(Adjusted for Health) I think I got better battery life before Sierra but I never tested it.

BTW the 2016 draws 3.5 Watts sitting idle.

Battery life is ok for me will now try just using it normally. I did see a couple of possible issues, the touch ID button seems very loose/ wobbly and on initial set up and clean install I saw a couple of graphic glitches. I also had iTunes crash twice during test and had to restart.

I did do a SMC and PRAM reset before and after a clean install of Sierra 10.12.1
 
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max99

max99

macrumors member
Nov 13, 2016
34
7
is it advisable to disable dropbox then? or change its settings to just sync when open?
 
T

technoholic

macrumors 6502a
Mar 20, 2016
627
301
No trying to say people are wrong to be speculating about cloud sync being part of the problem, but I am running exactly the same set of apps and data from my 2013 rMBP and that didn't have this issue. Due to the smaller battery, I could expect a consistently lower overall battery life but what I am getting is wildly inconsistent and most of time, between 4-6 hours, mostly somewhere in the middle at 5. I don't think we can say that anyone is wrong, because no one knows, but in a like for like comparison, that certainly isn't the case for me. My money is on bad drivers, especially wifi
 
borgusio

borgusio

macrumors 6502
Jul 22, 2011
300
124
technoholic said:
No trying to say people are wrong to be speculating about cloud sync being part of the problem, but I am running exactly the same set of apps and data from my 2013 rMBP and that didn't have this issue. Due to the smaller battery, I could expect a consistently lower overall battery life but what I am getting is wildly inconsistent and most of time, between 4-6 hours, mostly somewhere in the middle at 5. I don't think we can say that anyone is wrong, because no one knows, but in a like for like comparison, that certainly isn't the case for me. My money is on bad drivers, especially wifi
Click to expand...
My assumption is that - IN ABSOLUTE VALUES - you had exactly the same fluctuations on your MBP 2013. However, these fluctuations in consumption are now bigger in relative value compared to the smaller battery. This is why you see larger fluctuations with this new setup. I also believe that the management of CPU speed should be taken over by MacOS X, since otherwise each single app should optimize versus energy consumption, which is obviously extremely annoying for developers
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max99 said:
is it advisable to disable dropbox then? or change its settings to just sync when open?
Click to expand...
Depending on your use... as I said, when I do not synchronize anything it does not impact my battery life, even if it is switched on. As soon as I upload or download anything (even if pushed by someone else), I see the battery drain
 
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Queen6

Queen6

macrumors G4
Dec 11, 2008
11,213
11,455
Flying over the rainforest at dawn - Priceless
Same services worked without issue on the older models and no one was complaining then. Smaller the battery the greater the user impact on it`s reserves o_O People should either return them and or notify Apple formally, or nothing will change.

Apple`s needs to reduce the power drain from the OS period, needing to reduce your usage of previously acceptable cloud services to keep the notebook running is not acceptable for a premium product.

People also need to use Activity Monitor - Energy to view the actual time on run battery, as the time remaining value is only an estimate for a specific period in time not an accurate forecast until the battery is depleted. Do yourselves a favour and ignore it as 90% of the time it`s pretty much useless, only serving to ramp up the OCD in many.

Q-6
 
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J

JohnnyGo

macrumors 6502a
Sep 9, 2009
956
620
bdspilot said:
Hi Guys, been watching this thread for a couple of weeks. Just got my 13" i5 512 8GB TB MBP, was worried about battery life so ran a couple of test. heres what I found on mine. 8H17M (6watts) doing a movie loop in iTunes.

As a comparison I did the same test on my 2013 MacBook Pro: Brightness 12 clicks(75%), Keyboard off, Volume 8 Clicks (50%) 2013 Macbook (Health 86%) 6h 44M 9.1watts 7H 50M(Adjusted for Health) I think I got better battery life before Sierra but I never tested it.

BTW the 2016 draws 3.5 Watts sitting idle.
Click to expand...

Similar performance with my battery except with a lower brightness 9-10 clicks I get closer to 9h on light use.

BTW what did you think of the speakers??? For me, simply amazing.
 
B

bizack

macrumors 6502a
Apr 21, 2009
611
399
I just bought a replacement 13" TB 3.1/16/512. Didn't install any apps - using Sierra with minimal setup (no iCloud). Charged up and did a battery rundown. Display at 75%, backlighting set to default - playing YouTube on autoplay through popular videos. Getting 8 hours. My other MBP (same specs) gets 6 hours. Strange.
 
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barcode00

macrumors member
Dec 25, 2010
85
56
My battery dropped from 100% to 85% while sleeping for the duration of ≈18 hours. (I wanted to check how much it changed while not being used, and not being charged.)

13" TB/8/512
 
K

kwandrews

macrumors 6502
Mar 7, 2012
327
118
Colorado, USA
barcode00 said:
My battery dropped from 100% to 85% while sleeping for the duration of ≈18 hours. (I wanted to check how much it changed while not being used, and not being charged.)

13" TB/8/512
Click to expand...
I've noticed a bit of battery drain while it's sleeping too. In about 5 hours, it dropped 3%. Not horrible, but not expected either. This is something that would not be battery related (hardware) but should be able to be addressed with software/firmware.
 
V

vinsalducci

macrumors regular
Nov 26, 2016
139
164
I am currently on charge cycle 22 for my tbMBP battery-I have noticed that my battery life has improved as the charge cycles have increased. Batteries do require a "break in" period, and it's pretty clear my battery life has improved.

Also, QUIT STARING AT YOUR BATTERY ICON! Use your awesome new tech. Don't obsess about the battery. I think you'll find you'll be pleasantly surprised with how much battery life you actually GET, rathr than obsessing about the guesstimate of the prediction you're given.
 
xspin

xspin

macrumors member
Nov 10, 2016
47
21
New York, NY
Hey everyone!

Just spoke to an Apple Support rep. He told me to bring my computer into the Genius Bar just to run a diag to confirm it is not a hardware issue. He said that Apple is very aware of this issue on the MBPs and is looking for a fix.

Just was very glad to hear that.
 
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M

MDull

macrumors regular
Jun 22, 2011
101
36
Been having a very short life on my !5" losing 1% per hour in sleep mode. No open programs and only having the following on the dock- finder, safari, dashboard, contact, mail
I contacted Apple support and gave them the details. They made an appt with the local store and they did a battery check which turned out fine. They slso did a reset of SMC and Pram. It did no good. Got a call from Apple yesterday due to my initial call, they are very interested in what is going on. They had me do 4 sysdiagnose runs over a few hours then they called me back and I sent them in. They are being forwarded to engineers who will decide what to do, one of the things mentioned was possible replacement or doing some type of fix online which I would prefer assuming it's soft/firm ware related. I will find out what they want to do over the next several days. They do seem to be taking this very seriously. One other thing was that while I was on the phone with the support person I giving him readouts of my battery going down while we were talking it literally dropped several percentage points during our 30-40 min on the phone while doing nothing on my computer and no programs open and the usage indicator saying "no apps using significant energy" Also my screen is set at or about 75%
 
borgusio

borgusio

macrumors 6502
Jul 22, 2011
300
124
Well, just have a look at the quote from Apple on the frontage of Macrumors right now:
"Besides the apps we are working on all the time, there are a lot of things that are happening in the background that users may not be aware of that affects battery life."

What should happen in the background if not cloud syncing over wi-fi?
 
borgusio

borgusio

macrumors 6502
Jul 22, 2011
300
124
I just tested this: connecting the Mac to iCloud and activating your photo streaming reduces your battery life on the MacBook if you shot a significant amount of photos with your iPhone (try with 100 done rapidly on your iPhone and see what happens) :eek:

So basically, for each photo you shoot with your iPhone while at the same time having your MacBook on battery, you will shorten the MacBook battery life as well.

Quite logical indeed, just crazy that the impact is so high.
 
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