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Battery life for 13" and 15" Macbook Pro

S

solideliquid

macrumors 6502
Aug 8, 2008
376
146
Here's an interesting find (sorry if old). I've been messing with the new AT&T Directv NOW online service. When playing live video on safari (it uses silverlight) I noticed with Activity Monitor that the Radeon 450 Pro was being used. Netflix, Hulu continue to use the integrated graphics processor.

Here's the funny part, I installed Chrome and logged into the AT&T service and when playing video, it continued to use the integrated graphics! Wow! What the heck Safari?!
 
F

Fluxvol

macrumors newbie
Jan 4, 2017
20
5
New observations from testing last night and this morning: Messaging kicks the dGPU into action and dropped the battery 35% in one hour. Is that not a bit much? Regardless, I doubt Apple's "fix" yet to be released will address every situation on the 15in tbMBP. If my wife can't have messaging, safari (no tabs) and Pages open without breaking 6 hours then I feel like we got ripped off. I got an extension on my return to Best Buy for another month so I have time but I am about ready to just get the 2015 model.
 
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S

Sanpete

macrumors 68040
Nov 17, 2016
3,695
1,665
Utah
Fluxvol said:
New observations from testing last night and this morning: Messaging kicks the dGPU into action and dropped the battery 35% in one hour. Is that not a bit much? Regardless, I doubt Apple's "fix" yet to be released will address every situation on the 15in tbMBP. If my wife can't have messaging, safari (no tabs) and Pages open without breaking 6 hours then I feel like we got ripped off. I got an extension on my return to Best Buy for another month so I have time but I am about ready to just get the 2015 model.
Click to expand...

If you mean the 2015 model without a dGPU, that would fix it! Otherwise the software would operate in the same way.
 
Papakaliati

Papakaliati

macrumors newbie
Dec 16, 2016
13
8
Thessaloniki
Fluxvol said:
New observations from testing last night and this morning: Messaging kicks the dGPU into action and dropped the battery 35% in one hour. Is that not a bit much? Regardless, I doubt Apple's "fix" yet to be released will address every situation on the 15in tbMBP. If my wife can't have messaging, safari (no tabs) and Pages open without breaking 6 hours then I feel like we got ripped off. I got an extension on my return to Best Buy for another month so I have time but I am about ready to just get the 2015 model.
Click to expand...

On Beta 3 messages no longer fires the GPU. It used to also on my laptop pre Beta 3.
 
Papakaliati

Papakaliati

macrumors newbie
Dec 16, 2016
13
8
Thessaloniki
Fluxvol said:
Can you test how long your battery lasts with beta 3 just surfing in safari? Maybe just an hour session? I still don't think I can reach 8 hours.
Click to expand...

I'll be getting around 9 hours on my first run with beta 3, including 1 hour Skype 1 hour videos and also with 10% being lost while sleeping... It's easy to achieve those results when the GPU doesn't kick in all the time.

My last 28% are rated for about 3 hours.
 
T

trfjason

macrumors member
May 28, 2010
71
15
I did a clean install and updated to 10.12.3 beta 3 on my 15" 2.7 460. Battery life seems a bit better. I was browsing on Safari for about 52 min, battery dropped from 97.8% to 89.8%.

However, I encountered the problem with decrease in 1%/h when it is in sleep. I think something was running?
 
M

MrGuder

macrumors 68040
Nov 30, 2012
3,049
2,024
I just wanted to report my first battery charge even though it doesn't really mean much since it's still brand new. I got the 2016 15" 2.6, 512 SSD Radeon Pro 450 and after a full charge and drain to 6% activity monitor shows I had 50 mins remaining and time on battery was 9 hrs 08 mins. If you followed my post from yesterday my first day for the first couple hours I ran a few safari tabs with with HD video playing in 2 different tabs for a little over an hour each with brightness set to 75% and keyboard brightness about the same level. I also had iTunes playing. The rest of the time from that charge was just surfing with 1 tab watching basic you tube videos and videos from some of the news feeds I watch still at 75% brightness. I also did use pages and more iTunes. It started to get warm underneath but not uncomfortable. The dGPU never turned on so this was all using the internal GPU.

I didn't buy this laptop for the dGPU since I don't game and won't be using intense programs, I bought it because I wanted a 15" laptop and I'm vested in the Apple system and already have a Mac mini so I really like the OS system. So far I'm really impressed with battery although like I said it's only 1 day but with my uses I can see this will not be a problem for me. I just checked activity monitor now and I've been using it for a couple hours tonight since full charge and I'm at 93% and says time remaining 7.5 hrs.

I don't know if its the ram or the processor but this 2016 feels so much faster than the 2015 MacBook Pro 15" 2.2 512 SSD that I returned.
[doublepost=1484185725][/doublepost]
trfjason said:
However, I encountered the problem with decrease in 1%/h when it is in sleep. I think something was running?
Click to expand...

I had this same problem lost 7% with sleep then I turned off notifications during sleep mode and can confirm I had 0 loss while in sleep mode now. Thanks to someone here that advised of this trick.
 
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F

Fluxvol

macrumors newbie
Jan 4, 2017
20
5
10.12.3 tested for a full 5 hours running work tasks for my wife's job. The results are not near what others are seeing. This charge will get 6hr 40min of screen time before it dies. A great improvement over before but I don't see how we can reach 9, let alone 8 hours (which is my cutoff). She told me this morning she would prefer I just return it instead of spending all my time testing a laptop that should just work for close to it's advertised time for $2400 (I agree). Last year's model is still where we are leaning.
 
S

Sanpete

macrumors 68040
Nov 17, 2016
3,695
1,665
Utah
Fluxvol said:
10.12.3 tested for a full 5 hours running work tasks for my wife's job. The results are not near what others are seeing. This charge will get 6hr 40min of screen time before it dies. A great improvement over before but I don't see how we can reach 9, let alone 8 hours (which is my cutoff). She told me this morning she would prefer I just return it instead of spending all my time testing a laptop that should just work for close to it's advertised time for $2400 (I agree). Last year's model is still where we are leaning.
Click to expand...

Bummer. You might do better to exchange and try again, since the old MBP 15" gets worse battery life than the new one in tests.
 
F

Fluxvol

macrumors newbie
Jan 4, 2017
20
5
Sanpete said:
Bummer. You might do better to exchange and try again, since the old MBP 15" gets worse battery life than the new one in tests.
Click to expand...

Worse? I have seen at least 8 hours with normal usage, mostly 9. I really want to keep this beauty if at all possible.

I am on my second full day test today, I am trending towards 7 hour mark.
 
S

Sanpete

macrumors 68040
Nov 17, 2016
3,695
1,665
Utah
Ars Technica and Notebook Check ran the same tests on the 2015 and 2016 15" models, when they were new, and found that in the same controlled conditions the new one did significantly better. So you may find that if you run the same programs the same way on the 2015, you might get worse results, if it's a software issue. If it's hardware, a return for exchange will probably do it.

What exactly are you doing for your test?
 
J

jerryk

macrumors 604
Nov 3, 2011
7,421
4,208
SF Bay Area
hawkeye_a said:
None of that makes any sense to me.

1. If CR used the same settings for all the rounds of testing(which are averaged for the final rating), why does that produce wildly different results? Shouldnt the results be the same anyway if the settings are unchanged?

2. If CR's standardized configuration/settings for tests across different laptops, requires cache to be turned off, isn't CR's initial reservations still valid?

3. If CR turned caching off on other laptops (past MacBooks, Windows boxes, etc) why dont they produce wildly varying results?

Something smells fishy.
Click to expand...

I think one variable that is not being accounted for is that websites change over time. For example, a website on day one (or hour one) may display a video source X that is 1 minute long and of a certain format on it's home page. On the next run (in a day or an hour later) that content may be a different video that is 2 minutes long. In addition the resolution of the video may differ. Also, as a developer with sites that depend on advertising you often disable the browsers caching for things like ad windows since at time x Amazon wants to show shoes, and time y they want to show car mats, because these reflect the thing the user last searched for on Google and is more likely to click on and buy, bring the site revenue.

As for why the variation is more pronounced with the MacBook Pro versus Windows, this may be due to the newness of processor software combination. As a developer you make some assumptions and if they work OK you move on. Unless someone flags high power consumption as a bug, you likely do not come back because you got a 100 tasks on your list and would like to not sleep at your desk, again. Over time, and usually after you ship, you get more experience playing with the hardware and come up with better techniques to take advantage of the hardware, better drivers from the vendor, etc., and power consumption decreases.
 
VirtualRain

VirtualRain

macrumors 603
Aug 1, 2008
6,304
118
Vancouver, BC
Latest Consumer Reports retest has battery life lasting between 15-18 hours. How is that possible? Would it even last that long at idle with the screen off?
 
S

Sanpete

macrumors 68040
Nov 17, 2016
3,695
1,665
Utah
VirtualRain said:
Latest Consumer Reports retest has battery life lasting between 15-18 hours. How is that possible? Would it even last that long at idle with the screen off?
Click to expand...

Their test is easier than Apple's, with a screen less bright, for one thing. Still, a nice result!
 
rezwits

rezwits

macrumors 6502a
Jul 10, 2007
838
436
Las Vegas
I just had to cross post this cause it's so relevant:

I just wanted to quickly comment on the whole "Battery issue(s)", with Macs or Windows machines. I started going to Starbucks, for the past 6 months to take a break, get an iced coffee, and comment my Xcode projects. I $#!+ you not:

The average is this:

2-3 Macs UNPLUGGED with people working on them for about an hour and a half. With 1-2 iPads UNPLUGGED, with people "doing whatever, haha inside joke..."

Then there are 1-2 PC people who are working on something, but are PLUGGED into the wall. And no ordinary Surfaces not one in 6 months. I have only seen one guy with a Surface Book (the funky hinge) during December and he was UNPLUGGED (I think).

I mean seriously, people, it's stone cold, one of two ways, you either have a MacBook with confidence to bring it somewhere and USE IT, (or an iOS device). Or you lug your PC and you take your "Brick!"

(6 months of this, going 2-3 times a week, at Starbucks!) END OF DISCUSSION!
 
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F

Fluxvol

macrumors newbie
Jan 4, 2017
20
5
Sanpete said:
Ars Technica and Notebook Check ran the same tests on the 2015 and 2016 15" models, when they were new, and found that in the same controlled conditions the new one did significantly better. So you may find that if you run the same programs the same way on the 2015, you might get worse results, if it's a software issue. If it's hardware, a return for exchange will probably do it.

What exactly are you doing for your test?
Click to expand...

Do you have links to said comparisons between the last 2 models? That is good information to have.

My wife and I have been using it in similar fashion for all of our tests:

Safari and Chrome with 2 to 6 tabs open. (sites such as google, disney, facebook)
Pages open with a 5 to 10 pg document being edited
Messaging application open and actively being used
Coconut and Battery Health 2 apps both open
Activity Monitor always open
No music streaming or video playback taking place the entire testing period

We can't, after many attempts, break 8 hours in this scenario. 7 is about the best we can get. I did load version 4 of 10.12.3 this morning and she is doing her normal workflow. She stated she had been on screen for 1hr 45min at 85% so far today.....which is promising!
 
thesaint024

thesaint024

macrumors 65816
Nov 14, 2016
1,073
888
suspension waiting room
B

bohrsatom

macrumors member
May 18, 2005
37
4
thesaint024 said:
Nice find. I wish I knew the effects for the 13" though. Not that I have a problem with battery life, but this is just another piece of information that could extend my battery life.
Click to expand...

The 13 has a default res of 1440 x 900 so that particular problem must be unique to the 15.
 
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