Thanks. It appears I may need to do a reinstall. I get much more than that in just a couple of hours.
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Battery life for 13" and 15" Macbook Pro
- Thread starter fokmik
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Thanks. It appears I may need to do a reinstall. I get much more than that in just a couple of hours.
That's what I always do when setting up a new computer. I don't even migrate any data (my primary computer is an iMac, so on my Macbook Pro I just access data in the cloud).
I'll give it a try this weekend.
UPDATE: I put it to sleep at 8:35am, and it was at 98%. Just woke it up at 10:39am and it is at 95%.
3% seems a lot to lose in just 2 hours.
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mine is similar. loses about 15% overnight (10 hours or so), both before and after the new update.
thought it could be bluetooth that kept waking it up so I turn off bluetooth every night...does not help either
Interesting article at Ars Technica of the new MacBook Pro's battery life:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/12/explaining-the-battery-life-problems-with-the-new-macbook-pros/
Takeaway: the CPU is now a larger percentage of the machine's total energy usage compared to older models, meaning there will be greater variance in battery life as people use the processor differently.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/12/explaining-the-battery-life-problems-with-the-new-macbook-pros/
Takeaway: the CPU is now a larger percentage of the machine's total energy usage compared to older models, meaning there will be greater variance in battery life as people use the processor differently.
On 10.12.2 it drained 3% overnight. I have that nap function where it says to get mail and such during sleep turned off.
On 10.12.1 it drained 6% overnight
Hey! I quite like the sound of this app, but there aren't any reviews on the App Store. Is the dev trustworthy?
Another interesting point raised is that all 15" MBPs have dedicated GPUs now, this may be something that some aren't used to having to look after. Not used to making sure that if something is using the dedicated GPU, that it isn't running for longer than necessary.
The dedicated GPU will absolutely decimate battery life if left running for any real amount of time, even though 35w for a dedicated GPU is fairly low - it's still a lot on a battery this small.
Doesn't explain it for many though who are well aware of all this though.
I just received my 15" MacBook Pro yesterday and today was my time being disconnected from power.
I am down to 47% Battery remaining and have been using the battery for the last 9:07! Which is pretty incredible in considering some of the experiences on this forum. If this continues I should be sitting around 14-15 hours with light use - 3 desktops with 6 safari windows open (2 google docs, youtube, and the remaining three just displaying text). Activity monitor open the whole time to monitor battery usage, textedit, messages, adobe cloud, and some brief chrome usage.
Haven't moved my photoshop use and to this system yet, and I am sure once I get into a heavy work load the battery performance will suffer.
I am down to 47% Battery remaining and have been using the battery for the last 9:07! Which is pretty incredible in considering some of the experiences on this forum. If this continues I should be sitting around 14-15 hours with light use - 3 desktops with 6 safari windows open (2 google docs, youtube, and the remaining three just displaying text). Activity monitor open the whole time to monitor battery usage, textedit, messages, adobe cloud, and some brief chrome usage.
Haven't moved my photoshop use and to this system yet, and I am sure once I get into a heavy work load the battery performance will suffer.
Great article. So glad a real, non youtube, OS agnostic journalist explained this so precisely. The battery is what it is. "Nuclear option" - return it if it doesn't meet your needs. No need to come to an Apple forum and flog it to death.
What a nonsense. The point is Apple should have never marketed as 10 hours+ if the CPU varies so much. I am not getting more than 7 hours out of the battery and this is not acceptable - full stop.
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For the people who are just receiving their machines, you need to allow at least ~5 cycles or a week or so for the battery to settle and become better.
Disclaimer, I am only on my first charge since I just received my 15" yesterday, but personally I don't find anything wrong with Apple's advertising so far. I am currently 11 hours and 34 minutes into my charge and still have 25% left.
I think it really varies on use though. I am sure some days when I do a lot of photo production, that experience with battery life will be much different. But for a more casual day of word processing, internet browsing, music listening, a youtube tab with a several hour podcast going while I work, it has been phenomenal.
you can check this thread for quick answers to that query:
15" tbMBP Battery life with latest Sierra update
My MacBook Pro 13" TB was losing about 10% battery a night in sleep mode. I took it into the Genius Bar and the guy I saw changed my network settings. He created a new location and within that wifi is the only network port turned on. Since he did this my battery life is a lot better when it goes to sleep. I suggest people give this a try if all they use is wifi
After clean install of 10.12.2 I get much better battery life. The laptop has been on battery since yesterday, and in the mean time I've had a whole bunch of Skype for Business calls/chats, multiple RDP sessions, Arq Backups running hourly, Tweetbot running, Terminal running various apps, and about 8-9 Safari tabs open. Right now it's showing 26% left with an Activity Monitor estimate of 2:05h left.
This is with auto brightness on and every set to default (keyboard brightness, volume, etc etc).
This is with auto brightness on and every set to default (keyboard brightness, volume, etc etc).
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Agreed.
In summary, the article lays out several points discussed throughout the posts in this thread:
I. CPU power draw is really variable and thus unpredictable
- depending on kinds of apps,
- different user profiles (local vs cloud storage),
- more or less activity (working on one photo for an hour vs batch updating 1000 photos)
II. Screen brightness significantly impacts time on battery
- nothing new here but given high brightness level (by far brightest screen I ever used at 100%) has more impact than prior laptops
III. Optimization of software is key for better performance
- Apple is to blame for releasing the product with a .1 release that was not good enough (10.12.2 is better but not the whole solution)
- Other developers have to step up (MSFT I am looking at you)
In summary, more than ever, YMMV so hard to have an announced battery life. First reviews, for example, clearly showed that the nTB model far surpasses the 10h "marketing claim"
Do you have it set to use Power Nap? Mine isn't, and my battery dropped from 70% to 68% in about 9 1/2 hours overnight. 3% in 2 hours does seem like a lot, so you may have a hardware problem, which I hope you get taken care of.
BTW, I read the following about Power Nap from Apple in a support document from August 2016:
"Computers with 2013 or a later year in the model name use Power Nap until the battery is drained. Computers with 2012 or an earlier year in the model name suspend Power Nap if the battery has a charge of 30% or less."
That seems crazy to me. Why would you want your battery to be completely drained without your knowledge? It makes much more sense to let the computer check email and do the other things that Power Nap allows until the battery reaches a specified threshold.
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I wonder what they did in the update to make the battery life better.
Here is what Ars Technica wrote:
"Anecdotal reports since the 10.12.2 update hit have suggested that the update could improve battery life, but I don’t think this is the case—Apple told us repeatedly and emphatically that it had taken no specific steps to improve MacBook Pro battery life in this update. According to Apple’s data, the company said the batteries appeared to be performing as intended.
So it seems to me that the only solution they did was remove the time remaining. So was it indeed a placebo effect? Because if true, I think we are a bunch of sheep here.
Reading the Ars article makes me more convinced that they just put a smaller battery that is why it is not getting to the number of hours they promised. Perhaps the quicker boost and idling on the new processors makes the laptop more efficient, but if you are doing anything that will hit the fan constantly, it will fare worse than the older MBPs. Which means for "Pros", sustained use that will push the processor will result to less battery life than its predecessors.
I think for everyone's sanity, we should just use the laptop and just do not worry about battery life. When the battery icon turns red, then just plug it in. After all these new MBPs have quicker charging. So overall you will feel that you have more battery life.
Ideally if you use your MBP all in the morning, then charge your laptop during your lunch time, you will have more than enough juice to last you till you sleep. Still not quite the all-day battery life but good enough. Then in a couple of years better power banks will be available for these since they are USB-C.
Here is what Ars Technica wrote:
"Anecdotal reports since the 10.12.2 update hit have suggested that the update could improve battery life, but I don’t think this is the case—Apple told us repeatedly and emphatically that it had taken no specific steps to improve MacBook Pro battery life in this update. According to Apple’s data, the company said the batteries appeared to be performing as intended.
So it seems to me that the only solution they did was remove the time remaining. So was it indeed a placebo effect? Because if true, I think we are a bunch of sheep here.
Reading the Ars article makes me more convinced that they just put a smaller battery that is why it is not getting to the number of hours they promised. Perhaps the quicker boost and idling on the new processors makes the laptop more efficient, but if you are doing anything that will hit the fan constantly, it will fare worse than the older MBPs. Which means for "Pros", sustained use that will push the processor will result to less battery life than its predecessors.
I think for everyone's sanity, we should just use the laptop and just do not worry about battery life. When the battery icon turns red, then just plug it in. After all these new MBPs have quicker charging. So overall you will feel that you have more battery life.
Ideally if you use your MBP all in the morning, then charge your laptop during your lunch time, you will have more than enough juice to last you till you sleep. Still not quite the all-day battery life but good enough. Then in a couple of years better power banks will be available for these since they are USB-C.
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Thanks. I will first do a clean install of 10.2.2 this weekend. Then I will try creating a new network profile with only Wifi as someone suggested earlier, and turn off Power Nap. I'll report back.
Yesterday I got about 7.5 hours on a charge. Definitely better than 6-6.5, but not even close to what some are seeing. And my usage is pretty light.
I did have several periods where I put the computer to sleep, though, and those drained the battery significantly. So hopefully after the above fixes I'll be able to get over 8 hours. I'd be happy with that.
What do you suggest? They market it as 3-11 hours based on usage? They are only going by industry standards on rating battery life. They clearly outlined how they achieved "up to 10 hours". I think your expectations of Apple are pretty high. They're an impressive company, but don't you think you're taking it kind of far?
I think Apple should of marketed the battery life on the conservative side. If they had said up to 7 hours for the new MacBook Pros the expectation would of been just that. If anyone got beyond that it would of been seen a bonus. The next generation of MacBook Pros should get closer to the 10 hour mark with the Kaby Lake and Cannon Lake processors assuming Apple doesn't make it thinner
I think the point is that even if you recreate the test environment Apple used, it's still not possible to achieve 10 hours. 9to5 tested with even more conservative settings and didn't reach 10 hours. I'm confused as to why so many people apologize for Apple - it's strange and bizarre.