Battery life for 13" and 15" Macbook Pro

[Woodcrest64]

Those Skylake Processors have a TDP of 45 watts inside the new MBPs paired with a 6884mah battery vs the 2015 MBPs with the Haswell processors at 47watts with 8460mah battery.

Intel is going to have to give Apple those Kaby Lake 35watt TDP processors to get back the battery life that the 15" 2015 MBPs have seen. No amount of software updates in my opinion is going to give customers 10 hours of real world usage.

 

[mercedes27]

Yeeeeeaaah. Battery life now 10:30min after update - safari, e-mail, finder, and some PDFs opened with 50% brightness.
Power consumption right now - 4,6w.
And as I see - there is huge amount of people with increased battery life after update.

 

[kp98077]

I would love to hear some real-world reports as well.

I read that the battery for the 13" TB version is horrible—6-7 hours.

The 15" TB seems to be a lot better at 10-11 hours. I could definitely live with that, and I like that it has the same dimensions as my 2013 MBA. However, it is a pound heavier, and that's significant.

The 13" non-TB seems to be closer to 12 hours with light usage. This probably makes the most sense for me given how I will use this machine, but the one thing about the TB version I'm drawn to is TouchID. I am a heavy 1Password user and they've already released an update that allows using TouchID to access the vault and passwords, which would be a major time saver for me.

My co-worker just got his 13" and battery life has been about 7hrs pushing it hard...

 

[dark_phoenix2000]

I recently purchased a mid 2015 15" rMBP after hearing about all the problems with the tbMBP. My machine came out of the box with Sierra installed and I have run it through 5 cycles.

I would consider myself lucky to get more than 6 hours Internet browsing through Safari with no other apps open and screen brightness set to 50%. Have tried a SMC reset, PRAM zap, and relaunching the dock. Have not used migration assistant, have treated the machine as a clean slate.

All in all, I have been very disappointed with the battery life of the mid 2015 15" rMBP so far. Hoping the 10.12.2 release changes this for the better!

 

[JohnnyGo]

I recently purchased a mid 2015 15" rMBP after hearing about all the problems with the tbMBP. My machine came out of the box with Sierra installed and I have run it through 5 cycles.

I would consider myself lucky to get more than 6 hours Internet browsing through Safari with no other apps open and screen brightness set to 50%. Have tried a SMC reset, PRAM zap, and relaunching the dock. Have not used migration assistant, have treated the machine as a clean slate.

All in all, I have been very disappointed with the battery life of the mid 2015 15" rMBP so far. Hoping the 10.12.2 release changes this for the better!

MacOS Sierra seems to be the culprit not only in the case of the new MBP but also, in your case, the old MBP. Most people remember the battery life from previous OS and are comparing "apple" to "oranges". That being said, it's still Apple's problem to fix.

The new update (10.2.2) is one step in the right direction.

 

[^_^]

My co-worker just got his 13" and battery life has been about 7hrs pushing it hard...

"Just got his" implies he isn't done indexing...

I recently purchased a mid 2015 15" rMBP after hearing about all the problems with the tbMBP. My machine came out of the box with Sierra installed and I have run it through 5 cycles.

I would consider myself lucky to get more than 6 hours Internet browsing through Safari with no other apps open and screen brightness set to 50%. Have tried a SMC reset, PRAM zap, and relaunching the dock. Have not used migration assistant, have treated the machine as a clean slate.

All in all, I have been very disappointed with the battery life of the mid 2015 15" rMBP so far. Hoping the 10.12.2 release changes this for the better!

IMO you've made the wrong move... If you wanted the 2015 version for reasons other than the battery life, then it is fine, but otherwise you should have done what I've been doing - wait.

 

[dark_phoenix2000]

"Just got his" implies he isn't done indexing...



IMO you've made the wrong move... If you wanted the 2015 version for reasons other than the battery life, then it is fine, but otherwise you should have done what I've been doing - wait.

Well, I wanted to replace my early 2008 24" iMac and have had a change of circumstances which means I don't really have the space for it anymore. Didn't want to fork out for the new macbook pro's for all the problems I was hearing about them as well as my personal reasons such as a) didn't want to spend anywhere near as much money as is being charged b) I am not ready for transitioning to USB-C and c) I can't be doing with dongles. Also, I got a really sweet deal on what I got through a classified ad (it was unopened and sealed, all documents and receipts in place, Serial number checked out etc) so saved myself a packet compared with buying direct from Apple.

Overall I am happy, my only downer is with the battery life. So many reviewers claimed to get what Apple advertised, so many forum posters claim to also get it, and so many also claim not to get it.

 

[jk76]

Yeeeeeaaah. Battery life now 10:30min after update - safari, e-mail, finder, and some PDFs opened with 50% brightness.
Power consumption right now - 4,6w.
And as I see - there is huge amount of people with increased battery life after update.

I must say "time remaining" numbers on the Activity monitor after 10.12.2 update are surreal. Extrapolation from it and amperage readings suggest over 19 hours of power for fully charged battery on 15" tbMBP. I have certain problems believing it actually reflects reality...

 

[mercedes27]

I must say "time remaining" numbers on the Activity monitor after 10.12.2 update are surreal. Extrapolation from it and amperage readings suggest over 19 hours of power for fully charged battery on 15" tbMBP. I have certain problems believing it actually reflects reality...

Real numbers - real testing. I have remaining time even 8hours when 50% of battery left. So I don't believe it as well. But it is much better now and I actually reach 10h now with Safari.

 

[RobinInOR]

The time remaining numbers really change over time. I'll pull up the activity monitor and they'll say something huge, like 19 hours remaining, then after a minute or 2 they'll settle down to something that makes more sense. And it will be completely different than coconut battery app - wildly different. I guess confirmation that there's a lot going on that affects battery - their optimization routines, etc.

I just plugged in, was down to 15%. Was drawing 11w constantly with streaming radio, which I guess is to be expected.

 

[jk76]

The time remaining numbers really change over time. I'll pull up the activity monitor and they'll say something huge, like 19 hours remaining, then after a minute or 2 they'll settle down to something that makes more sense. And it will be completely different than coconut battery app - wildly different. I guess confirmation that there's a lot going on that affects battery - their optimization routines, etc.

I just plugged in, was down to 15%. Was drawing 11w constantly with streaming radio, which I guess is to be expected.

Lowest I saw before 10.12.2 final was about 6.8 W on 15". Now lowest I have seen is 3.0 W. And it rarely goes over 4 watts. If these are real... it's incredible. If not, why?

 

[RobinInOR]

My numbers match yours watt wise. Standard Safari is now 3-3.5W, but with streaming is 11W. Before 10.12.2 it was usually 6W w/o streaming, so definitely a improvement in Safari battery usage.

 

[Mercman1]

I normally average over 9 hours. iTunes playing, Safari, Lots of email, Powerpoint editing, OneDrive synching on. Screen on about 60% + brightness, and a few messages and videos being sent. certainly not video editing, but the TB 13" MBP is certainly equivalent to my 2015 13" rMBP in battery life. (Not saying anything about other people's experience, just saying I am a very happy owner of the new TB MBP)

 

[thesaint024]

My numbers match yours watt wise. Standard Safari is now 3-3.5W, but with streaming is 11W. Before 10.12.2 it was usually 6W w/o streaming, so definitely a improvement in Safari battery usage.

Not all streaming is created equal. I was getting different watts depending on the service. HBO was particularly bad with flash, but uBlock and ghostery (on different browsers) seemed to have calmed them down. I have no idea what they are doing behind the scenes but they are lowering watts for me. iTunes was bad for me too, but I haven't tried since the new .2 update.

 

[Saturn1217]

TRY THIS to measure your battery accurately! It will require $2.99 for the Mr Stopwatch app, but it's worth it. It runs in the menu bar (when you hide the main window). It will pause automatically when you put your Mac to sleep, close the lid, etc. So, it's really only tracking when you have it in actual use. This will let you really measure REAL usage vs. guessing and or taking Apple's word for it. Then you can look at the activity monitor for time on battery, which includes sleep, etc.

Agreed! Another great option is Battery Logger, available for $1.99 on the app store. It is specifically designed to measure battery life run time and will keep a log of multiple tests (with the exact start and end battery % before you plug back in included). I've been using this since I got my Macbook Air back in 2013 and it has never given me issues. We really need some hard numbers, not estimates based on wattage because batteries aren't guaranteed to drain in a linear fashion.

Here is an example of the chart on my Macbook Air (which needs a battery replacement soon).

 

[technoholic]

Debating whether to upgrade to 10.12.3 beta now or hold off on .2 final till more people have it...

 

[xmonkey]

Those Skylake Processors have a TDP of 45 watts inside the new MBPs paired with a 6884mah battery vs the 2015 MBPs with the Haswell processors at 47watts with 8460mah battery.

Intel is going to have to give Apple those Kaby Lake 35watt TDP processors to get back the battery life that the 15" 2015 MBPs have seen. No amount of software updates in my opinion is going to give customers 10 hours of real world usage.

Not necessarily. Which is why Apple is gaining additional power savings with new display technology, better dGPUs, etc. There's a whole lot more to battery life than the CPU...

 

[badlydrawnboy]

Lowest I saw before 10.12.2 final was about 6.8 W on 15". Now lowest I have seen is 3.0 W. And it rarely goes over 4 watts. If these are real... it's incredible. If not, why?

Wow, rarely goes above 4 watts? What do you have open?

I installed 10.12.2 final last night. This morning battery definitely seems better. I'm at 81% and have been on battery for 2 hours. That would suggest 10 hours.

However, right now I'm at 6.3 watts and 540 mAH. I have Safari open with two tabs (including this one), Chrome open with one tab (idle), Fantastical 2, Messages, Slack, Evernote, PDF Expert, and Pages (all of those open and idle). My usage seems to range between 4-8 watts, and rarely goes below 4 unless I have no apps open at all.

I'm cautiously optimistic... I saw a similar improvement when I reinstalled Sierra earlier on, but it didn't last. So I'll need to test it for a few more days.

As I've said all along, if I can get 8-8.5 I'd be happy. 10 would be incredible. 6-6.5, have to return it. Fingers crossed.

 

[dof250]

Debating whether to upgrade to 10.12.3 beta now or hold off on .2 final till more people have it...

Hmm I just installed the 10.12.3 beta. Usage seems to go up again. Now idling around 6-8 watts again. Up from around 4-5 on the 10.12.2 final

Edit: It's not indexing or something... It's completely idle...

 

[technoholic]

Hmm I just installed the 10.12.3 beta. Usage seems to go up again. Now idling around 6-8 watts again. Up from around 4-5 on the 10.12.2 final

Edit: It's not indexing or something... It's completely idle...

4-5 seems quite low though I think. But I'll wait and see for more reports.

 

[elvin_hu]

I keep getting 15-20 watts no matter what I'm doing

 

[vinsalducci]

Let me see if I understand this. People has Sierra with BATTERY TIME LEFT and they were angry because it said they didn't have very much battery time left.

Now Sierra has taken that away because it was inaccurate, everybody seems to be getting more battery time, and people are mad because Sierra doesn't show them this.

People are strange.

 

[JohnnyGo]

Not all streaming is created equal. I was getting different watts depending on the service. HBO was particularly bad with flash, but uBlock and ghostery (on different browsers) seemed to have calmed them down. I have no idea what they are doing behind the scenes but they are lowering watts for me. iTunes was bad for me too, but I haven't tried since the new .2 update.

Youtube gets me up to 7-8 watts unfortunately, even with ghostery and ublock. I never installed Flash in this MacBook (hopefully that will continue to be the case). Hbogo is flash only ???

 

[bizack]

i share my experiences doing a battery test on my tbMBP...

are you getting the same time out of your battery?

I just did this test with my replacement MBP TB and got 8.5 hours. Before the Sierra update it was closer to 7.25 hours. My previous MBP TB got 6.5 hours.

 

[thesaint024]

Youtube gets me up to 7-8 watts unfortunately, even with ghostery and ublock. I never installed Flash in this MacBook (hopefully that will continue to be the case). Hbogo is flash only ???

Yep, flash only. I avoided it as much as possible, but no dice. Yeah youtube is a bit of a hog too. Netflix seems ok, haven't tried Amazon yet. And more importantly, I haven't anything with the new update yet. Hopefully, it improved the power usage on streaming.