Battery life for 13" and 15" Macbook Pro

[skids929]

This is my plan, basically. My only bother with it is that for perhaps a similar delta, I could just get a 2015 MBA and keep it!

Would have been great if Apple had delayed the release and instead dropped them at WWDC with the upgrades expected from the recent sierra beta references.

I needed a laptop, my old was so overdue it barely worked, had no choice. I am VERY happy with this one, with the exception of the price, but if the new release made some major improvement I'd consider giving it to my kids or selling and getting another. If it's an incremental improvement, which it likely will be, I will hold on to this and continue to be happy with it.

 

[phas3]

is there a significant difference bin battery consumption between Chrome and Safari?

 

[Sanpete]

is there a significant difference bin battery consumption between Chrome and Safari?

Usually there is. Safari uses less.

 

[jclardy]

Hmm, so on my 2016 I am getting abysmal battery life now. With what I consider to be a fairly light load (the same stuff I was doing on a 2015 MacBook and getting 8-9 hours) I am getting about 4-5 hours on my 2016 13". Xcode, Slack, Zeplin...and that is pretty much it. Brightness at mid. Today I've been using it since 9 AM, it is now 10:30 AM and I am at 55%...

 

[nincompoop]

Hmm, so on my 2016 I am getting abysmal battery life now. With what I consider to be a fairly light load (the same stuff I was doing on a 2015 MacBook and getting 8-9 hours) I am getting about 4-5 hours on my 2016 13". Xcode, Slack, Zeplin...and that is pretty much it. Brightness at mid. Today I've been using it since 9 AM, it is now 10:30 AM and I am at 55%...

What version/update of sierra are you on?

 

[Sanpete]

Hmm, so on my 2016 I am getting abysmal battery life now. With what I consider to be a fairly light load (the same stuff I was doing on a 2015 MacBook and getting 8-9 hours) I am getting about 4-5 hours on my 2016 13". Xcode, Slack, Zeplin...and that is pretty much it. Brightness at mid. Today I've been using it since 9 AM, it is now 10:30 AM and I am at 55%...

13" TB? You can see in your Activity Monitor Energy tab what's using up the battery.

 

[selim_sivri]

Hello,
My MacBook Pro is 13" 2.9 16Gb 512 Gb.
Working in battery power only 3-4 hours.
I see in Activity Monitor
Finder using Avg Energy Impact 48.78 is it normal ?
Thank you.

 

[Sanpete]

Finder using Avg Energy Impact 48.78 is it normal ?

No. Is the machine new?

 

[selim_sivri]

No. Is the machine new?

Yes new machine.

13" Touch Bar and Touch ID
2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i5
16 Gb Ram
512 Gb Hdd

this problem its a virus or bug ?
What do you recommend?

 

[Sanpete]

Yes new machine.

13" Touch Bar and Touch ID
2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i5
16 Gb Ram
512 Gb Hdd

this problem its a virus or bug ?
What do you recommend?

Not a virus, or that would be very unlikely. A bug, possibly. If you've only had the machine a couple days, just use it normally and see if it stops using so much power. The Finder might have been up to something that it's finished with now.

 

[beachmama]

Problem for me is that this is not my primary work computer (that's an iMac). I use it mostly when I travel, and that's when the battery life becomes important. I don't have a trip planned in the next two weeks, so I'm relying on the reports of others for battery life (before my return window closes).

Put here for all of us your battery life for surfing the web on MacRumors
From what i read, after indexing and all of that is done, the battery usage is like 11 hours for 15" and 12 hours for the 13"

My sister-in-law just gave me her 2010 MacBookPro 13" and battery is sketchy . . . I'm considering a new battery along with 1TB SSD and 4GB RAM addition. We also have external batteries so that's an option as well.

 

[macintoshmac]

Hello,
My MacBook Pro is 13" 2.9 16Gb 512 Gb.
Working in battery power only 3-4 hours.
I see in Activity Monitor
Finder using Avg Energy Impact 48.78 is it normal ?
Thank you.

1. Did you transfer some heavy files between disks and partitions?
2. Why is your battery showing %5 instead of 5%, if at all?

You might have some corruption, best to reinstall. (This comment solely based on the rogue % sign)

 

[Precursor]

2. Why is your battery showing %5 instead of 5%, if at all?

You might have some corruption, best to reinstall. (This comment solely based on the rogue % sign)

That's not a rogue sign, it's how it's pronounced in Turkish, as in "percentage 100" instead of "100 percent"
Turkish settings

 

[- rob -]

Hmm, so on my 2016 I am getting abysmal battery life now. With what I consider to be a fairly light load (the same stuff I was doing on a 2015 MacBook and getting 8-9 hours) I am getting about 4-5 hours on my 2016 13". Xcode, Slack, Zeplin...and that is pretty much it. Brightness at mid. Today I've been using it since 9 AM, it is now 10:30 AM and I am at 55%...

This is exactly what I had happen on my 13" tbMBP 3.1 16gb 1tb. See my previous posts in this thread. I was doing normal web dev type stuff. Tried it with Chrome and Safari as primary browser.

I returned mine and have another one of the same I'm testing new at the start of March.

 

[screamlikeasiren]

Okay, just finished setting up my TB 13". Charged to full, no Spotlight indexing or anything. Battery is showing 9:41 remaining:

I could probably live with this if it actually gets 9:41. But it is declining rapidly. It started at 9:51 right after I unplugged it, then dropped to 9:41 in about 15 seconds, and now just after I took this screenshot it's already down to 9:21. That's not encouraging. All I'm doing right now is posting this message. Safari open and a few other apps, nothing intensive.
[doublepost=1479264808][/doublepost]Okay, this is bad news. My last post was about 52 minutes ago. I was eating dinner for about 45 of those 52 minutes, and the MBP was just sitting idle during that time. Check out what the battery indicator shows now:

I'm afraid the Verge review was right. In 52 minutes of no use at all, my battery went from 9:21 remaining to 6:57 remaining. That's ridiculous—I'm returning this for sure.

I can only hope the 15" model fares better, because I've already gotten pretty attached to TouchID. Not sure about TB itself yet, but TouchID alone makes it worthwhile for me (especially with 1Password).

I've tried clicking to see the remaining battery life, it doesn't show that on mine....
I have the touch bar 13" as well

 

[Sanpete]

I've tried clicking to see the remaining battery life, it doesn't show that on mine....

That feature was removed in a later software update. It wasn't a good way to test battery life.

 

[screamlikeasiren]

I am charged my 13" up to 100%, now I'm watching a movie on iTunes I bought, I opened up activity monitor and got this

is that normal :? or should I get an exchange from apple?

 

[Sanpete]

I am charged my 13" up to 100%, now I'm watching a movie on iTunes I bought, I opened up activity monitor and got this

is that normal :? or should I get an exchange from apple?

Can't tell. You can only tell how long the battery will last by timing how long it lasts. Do you have the touch bar? How long have you had the computer? What other programs are open? Are there any devices connected? What display scaling are you using? How bright is the screen? These and other things will affect your battery life.

 

[screamlikeasiren]

Can't tell. You can only tell how long the battery will last by timing how long it lasts. Do you have the touch bar? How long have you had the computer? What other programs are open? Are there any devices connected? What display scaling are you using? How bright is the screen? These and other things will affect your battery life.

I just got it yesterday,
I had iTunes open, played a movie for an hour, surfing the web, bluetooth is open. downloading music from iTunes Apple Music. I was connected to an external monitor for the movie to watch with my girlfriend. The screen brightness is half way up by two dots if that makes sense.
Yes I have the touch bar. I also have mail open as well.

Now Im done with the movie, disconnected from the monitor, closed bluetooth, and just browsing safari and browsing the forum.
[doublepost=1487833649][/doublepost]Now after all that I've said up there, now I have showing of 7 hours of battery life.

 

[macintoshmac]

I just got it yesterday,
I had iTunes open, played a movie for an hour, surfing the web, bluetooth is open. downloading music from iTunes Apple Music. I was connected to an external monitor for the movie to watch with my girlfriend. The screen brightness is half way up by two dots if that makes sense.
Yes I have the touch bar. I also have mail open as well.

Now Im done with the movie, disconnected from the monitor, closed bluetooth, and just browsing safari and browsing the forum.
[doublepost=1487833649][/doublepost]Now after all that I've said up there, now I have showing of 7 hours of battery life.

With all of that, it is normal. And none of this would have happened if Apple had said we are giving 7 hours battery life. Then, after some updates, people would have been all praise for the machine as it "exceeds expectations". Point is, just use your machine as you want to and keep it if you are happy.

Connected to an external Seagate 2TB disc, using Folx for downloading stuff, Safari with 8 tabs, my MBP 13 with TB shows about 8-11 watts of use, with VLC open and running. It is fine.

When I use nothing but Safari with 8-10 tabs, Outlook sporadically and OneNote, the battery life is expected around 12-13 hours. It depends on your usage. I would make a daring statement, the machines are not faulty. Could Apple have done slightly better? Yes. But, these machines are not faulty in terms of battery life under normal everyday usage. I have been using this machine for 3 months now and enjoy a 50-60 percent life remaining after 5 hours of constant use everyday, with Safari, OneNote and Outlook.

 

[screamlikeasiren]

With all of that, it is normal. And none of this would have happened if Apple had said we are giving 7 hours battery life. Then, after some updates, people would have been all praise for the machine as it "exceeds expectations". Point is, just use your machine as you want to and keep it if you are happy.

thank you haha well keep it. its for school and future work anyway thanks. Glad to fall upon this thread to be able to get some confirmation

 

[jpma]

just an update, I recently went to the latest 10.12.4 Beta (16E175b).
It solved all my battery issue, using less battery. Not that I have issue with my battery usage to begin with.
Roughly around 10% per hr.

And also no drain on sleeps, exactly like the older model before.
At least I would say for my 15" mbp 2016. Any battery usage issue is officially over for me in this version.

 

[mahcus36]

With all of that, it is normal. And none of this would have happened if Apple had said we are giving 7 hours battery life. Then, after some updates, people would have been all praise for the machine as it "exceeds expectations". Point is, just use your machine as you want to and keep it if you are happy.

Connected to an external Seagate 2TB disc, using Folx for downloading stuff, Safari with 8 tabs, my MBP 13 with TB shows about 8-11 watts of use, with VLC open and running. It is fine.

When I use nothing but Safari with 8-10 tabs, Outlook sporadically and OneNote, the battery life is expected around 12-13 hours. It depends on your usage. I would make a daring statement, the machines are not faulty. Could Apple have done slightly better? Yes. But, these machines are not faulty in terms of battery life under normal everyday usage. I have been using this machine for 3 months now and enjoy a 50-60 percent life remaining after 5 hours of constant use everyday, with Safari, OneNote and Outlook.

I think I might have a bad machine then. got mine in December, and since I've got it, Safari has had such a high average energy impact in Activity Monitor, consistently above 25-30, while doing nothing but browsing reddit, or going on sites for school that arent intensive by any means. Flash is disabled, and I've tried uninstalling it completely, no difference. extensions running or not (not having Adblock is a pain) has made 0 difference.

I've done a side by side comparison of a single safari tab and activity monitor. when I open up any site (e.g. I opened up reddit in this case), the immediate Energy Impact rises to above 30, and then drops back down to 0-2 while I browse that current page. If I click a link, boom, the Energy Impact shoots back up to 35. Go onto twitter, it reaches 60. I'm not sure what kind of units it is, but I am pretty confident that the fluctuations in Energy Impact are what is causing the average to be so high, and thus causing my batter to drain within 3-4 hours of doing nothing but browsing/reading online.

I think if I cant find any other solutions, I'll have to take it in to the Apple Store for a replacement, or maybe they'll run some diagnostics on it or something. I do need a replacement regardless; my "p" key is sticky and doesnt always register when I type on it. It's just a shame that it has to come to this. Is it possible I'm having these issues because it was a newer production model? maybe some faulty stuff?

 

[Sanpete]

I think I might have a bad machine then. got mine in December, and since I've got it, Safari has had such a high average energy impact in Activity Monitor, consistently above 25-30, while doing nothing but browsing reddit, or going on sites for school that arent intensive by any means. Flash is disabled, and I've tried uninstalling it completely, no difference. extensions running or not (not having Adblock is a pain) has made 0 difference.

I've done a side by side comparison of a single safari tab and activity monitor. when I open up any site (e.g. I opened up reddit in this case), the immediate Energy Impact rises to above 30, and then drops back down to 0-2 while I browse that current page. If I click a link, boom, the Energy Impact shoots back up to 35. Go onto twitter, it reaches 60. I'm not sure what kind of units it is, but I am pretty confident that the fluctuations in Energy Impact are what is causing the average to be so high, and thus causing my batter to drain within 3-4 hours of doing nothing but browsing/reading online.

I think if I cant find any other solutions, I'll have to take it in to the Apple Store for a replacement, or maybe they'll run some diagnostics on it or something. I do need a replacement regardless; my "p" key is sticky and doesnt always register when I type on it. It's just a shame that it has to come to this. Is it possible I'm having these issues because it was a newer production model? maybe some faulty stuff?

The average usage number is very high for what you describe, but the transitory numbers are normal. I just got mine to go up over 90 while opening a page.

 

[mahcus36]

The average usage number is very high for what you describe, but the transitory numbers are normal. I just got mine to go up over 90 while opening a page.

hmm, I see. so that's not a huge problem then. but the average numbers are still really high. I'll probably take it into the Apple Store anyways for the keyboard issue I've been having. if they end up replacing the whole laptop because of the keyboard, then ill get a fresh new machine to test the battery on. hopefully that one is less funky with its battery loss