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Battery life for 13" and 15" Macbook Pro
- Thread starter fokmik
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I always thought that the 2015 have better battery life. Now it feels like it's an issue of Sierra. Did the newest update fixed your battery life?
After the update to the official release, as well as updating my Microsoft Office suite, my battery has improved quite dramatically. Usage was sitting at 25-30w when I had just Safari, or I was using word processing. Now it's at 10w. 15W with Safari, MS Word, and Spotify playing music with speakers.
I got on my computer at 11am and have been using it on and off (I'd say roughly 4 hours) and it's at 50% now. Huge improvement over the 3hr I was originally getting when I first acquired the computer.
I got on my computer at 11am and have been using it on and off (I'd say roughly 4 hours) and it's at 50% now. Huge improvement over the 3hr I was originally getting when I first acquired the computer.
Awesome to hear so many improvements! Seems like your wattages are way more in line with what I've been seeing. Seems like the 13" was around 3-7 watts with light usage and the 15" has been around 7-10 watts with light usage. Those seem to average about 9 or 10 hours respectively for me. I was starting to think I wasn't surfing the internet like a pro or something.
I don't think it was as drastic as all the voodoo on here (reset NVRAM, SMC, reinstall Sierra multiple times, only use programs X, Y and Z, etc).
So I've been on battery for 3:45 and I'm at 53%. If I'm lucky I'll get 8 hours.
However, I am still noticing a significant battery drain when the computer sleeps. I put it to sleep around 78% and came back a couple hours later and it was 71%. That seems really high. I think if I had been using it continuously without putting it to sleep I'd be on track to get more like 8.5 or 9 hours.
That said, the power management still seems inconsistent. Without any change in what apps I have open or what I am doing (at least that I'm aware of), I am now at 11 watts! No idea why.
Then literally a minute later, again with no significant changes in what I'm doing, it's down to 6.6 watts. This is what doesn't make sense to me.
However, I am still noticing a significant battery drain when the computer sleeps. I put it to sleep around 78% and came back a couple hours later and it was 71%. That seems really high. I think if I had been using it continuously without putting it to sleep I'd be on track to get more like 8.5 or 9 hours.
That said, the power management still seems inconsistent. Without any change in what apps I have open or what I am doing (at least that I'm aware of), I am now at 11 watts! No idea why.
Then literally a minute later, again with no significant changes in what I'm doing, it's down to 6.6 watts. This is what doesn't make sense to me.
Very true. I was over generalizing but the cut in the battery pushed things a bit too far in being able to achieve similar battery results compared to the 2015 MacBook Pros.
Fair enough, but let's wait and see if this latest update brings some verified improvements
Fair enough, but let's wait and see if this latest update brings some verified improvements
Overall, more than 80% of the posts I've read show improvement over the previous version. Most of the improvements are rather impressive (50-100% gains), others are more modest 1-2h gains.
There are a few remaining users with problems but Apple is already working on a new beta version. There are certainly more fixes down the line.
Is anyone else seeing a huge power drain after just a short time in sleep? It happened for me again. I put my MBP to sleep just after the last screenshot I posted above, at 53%. Went away for a couple hours, came back, and now it's at 47%! That's a huge drop in a short time.
I did have some drain in sleep over night - maybe around 5-10% IIRC. It's possible that this is another area Apple needs to investigate.
Today was my first day using my 13" MBP w TB (i7/16GB) at the office with FileVault enabled and brightness 4-5 clicks from the top. I did multiple software installations and ended the day with heavy use of MS Word 2016. As I type this, I've gotten 9 hours and 15 minutes on battery. I'm at 7% remaining with Activity Monitor showing 36 minutes remaining. I suspect that I could get another 45 minutes until the battery gives out, which would total around 10 hours. That's certainly enough to satisfy me.
One thing I've noticed is that the power draw as shown by coconutBattery spikes rapidly for some tasks but then returns to baseline more quickly than it did before the 10.12.2 update.
BTW, I'm starting to like the Touch Bar more, especially Touch ID. It saved a lot of password typing during software installs today, and it works great with 1Password.
I'm still getting similar battery life as before the new sierra upgrade, 5 to 6.5 hours on 50% brightness, mainly browsing in safari. I've been looking at activity monitor more closely since the battery time was removed and Safari is consistently the app using significant energy and one thing to keep in mind is that some popular sites such as youtube appear to be a huge battery hog and they can bring battery life down significantly.
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hmm, so my battery life has actually gotten a little worse with the update. simply browsing safari is now draining around 10% in 30 minutes, whereas before the update, I could go almost an hour and it would drain 10%.
Furthermore, I was playing a simple game from the App Store (Memory) for about 10 minutes, and my battery drained 10 more %, while before the update, I dropped the same amount of battery in around 30 minutes. AND, my 13" MBP started getting really hot and loud (compared to how silent it is when doing most normal tasks) when I was playing Memory. So, battery life has actually gotten a little worse for me on this update
Furthermore, I was playing a simple game from the App Store (Memory) for about 10 minutes, and my battery drained 10 more %, while before the update, I dropped the same amount of battery in around 30 minutes. AND, my 13" MBP started getting really hot and loud (compared to how silent it is when doing most normal tasks) when I was playing Memory. So, battery life has actually gotten a little worse for me on this update
I think they just suck at nailing power management for all different macs. My macbook air pretty much never got the battery life they claimed it should get, usually not even close, even with just using Safari etc. Seems like the get it right for some and that's it.
I can report good news:
both on my MBP 2011 and on my MB 12 2015 I had the same problem you are having with these new machines on the previous Sierra release.
Both came back to longer battery life with the update to the most recent release of Sierra. Today I started my normal workday as usual and after 40' of use I lost just 2 % of battery.
It seems that the cause of the problem in my case was Keychain trying to activate itself all the time, also in sleep mode. Someone reported that by activating keychain the problem is solved, as well. This worked on the MacBook of a friend even before the update to the 10.12.2. The crazy thing was that keychain was not showing up as one of the energy intensive applications.
It becomes more and more clear to me that these systems are very "picky". It is enough if just one little thing is offset to kill the whole battery management. Each of you should investigate the source of the problem him/herself...
P.S. Onedrive still a big "killer". My girlfriend just added some photos at home and my battery went quickly down once again
both on my MBP 2011 and on my MB 12 2015 I had the same problem you are having with these new machines on the previous Sierra release.
Both came back to longer battery life with the update to the most recent release of Sierra. Today I started my normal workday as usual and after 40' of use I lost just 2 % of battery.
It seems that the cause of the problem in my case was Keychain trying to activate itself all the time, also in sleep mode. Someone reported that by activating keychain the problem is solved, as well. This worked on the MacBook of a friend even before the update to the 10.12.2. The crazy thing was that keychain was not showing up as one of the energy intensive applications.
It becomes more and more clear to me that these systems are very "picky". It is enough if just one little thing is offset to kill the whole battery management. Each of you should investigate the source of the problem him/herself...
P.S. Onedrive still a big "killer". My girlfriend just added some photos at home and my battery went quickly down once again
All benchmarks so far show that 2016 model has better battery life, at least in light tasks.
Has battery life also improved for 15" users? Most people with better battery life seem to be 13" users?
Yes. Battery life for my 15" had significantly improved.
Sometimes a simple reset/restart is needed after a new install or when something is wrong. The old ctrl-alt-del
Nowadays we forget that closing the lid only puts our babies to sleep...
I installed the official update yesterday evening but haven't had enough time to evaluate the real impact it has made to battery life. With the hour or so I had to play around I would say it 'feels' like there is some sort of improvement, but not a drastic change. Have noticed the power usage usage at idle seems lower, but just browsing through a single Safari window on sites such as these forums, reddit, BBC News is still drawing 16 - 20+ watts.
One thing I have noticed is that the battery monitor app I use (Battery Health) doesn't seem so erratic with its time remaining estimate, and the estimate is generally remains higher than it did pre update.
#60
I planned to buy 13 inch MBP with TB (8 gb ram, 256 GB SSD). I'm really a pro user, Does coding, gaming and surfing primarily.
Little bit worried after seeing the reviews on battery, graphics, etc. I knew after the sierra update apple fixed the issues.
But still need your opinions whether to buy or not. And please reply with your backup before and after the update.
I planned to buy 13 inch MBP with TB (8 gb ram, 256 GB SSD). I'm really a pro user, Does coding, gaming and surfing primarily.
Little bit worried after seeing the reviews on battery, graphics, etc. I knew after the sierra update apple fixed the issues.
But still need your opinions whether to buy or not. And please reply with your backup before and after the update.
Would love to hear some reports on battery drain during sleep. Want to figure out if the problem I'm having with that (6-8% drain over 2 hours) is isolated to me, or if others are experiencing it too.
Can anyone test that out today?
Can anyone test that out today?