Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Battery life on M1X PRO vs M1X MAX?
- Thread starter Starfyre
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Just did my first full-day unplugged from power with my 14" M1 Max 24-core.
After about 12 hours of usual work, with about 30 browser tabs (Safari & Edge), VS Code, Preview PDF docs, Slack, an MS Teams video call, some Spotify music for a couple of hours, and screen at 40-50% brightness, I had 16% reported battery life left (about 1hr50 estimated).
This was better than I expected and I'm pretty happy with this.
I would call this typical "light" work - quite a bit of video playback and media rich web-pages, but nothing that puts much load on the CPU or GPU.
After about 12 hours of usual work, with about 30 browser tabs (Safari & Edge), VS Code, Preview PDF docs, Slack, an MS Teams video call, some Spotify music for a couple of hours, and screen at 40-50% brightness, I had 16% reported battery life left (about 1hr50 estimated).
This was better than I expected and I'm pretty happy with this.
I would call this typical "light" work - quite a bit of video playback and media rich web-pages, but nothing that puts much load on the CPU or GPU.
I'm pretty happy with my M1 Max 32GB, but not sure about the battery life. I have the feeling that it lasts for 5-6 hours for "normal" use which is browsing, a bit of video calls and 1-2 design tools. I usually use almost full display brightness. Could that be the reason for the short battery life?
What is the best way for me to check the battery life, like in which conditions and is there a tutorial to how to test it best?
Thanks
What is the best way for me to check the battery life, like in which conditions and is there a tutorial to how to test it best?
Thanks
I have a similar config and get about 8 hours with nominal use with screen about 80% on 16". I think your use is normal. If you want the best battery life the M1 Pro 16" base model with 16gb RAM is the battery KING! It lasts a long time. The Max uses double the bandwidth even at idle so that uses more battery doing any task. The difference is that for most tasks you should be able to get them done faster so even though battery life is less you get more done in a shorter time. That is the trade off.
I had a base model 16" and the battery life was pretty amazing and I returned it for a Max with 32GB Ram and the battery life is noticeably shorter but I would say still very good forth performance.
Yes having the screen brightness at 100% is going to run battery down a lot faster too.
My 16" M1 MAX does suffer a bit compared to the M1 Macbook Pro 13" i had before it.
I think i did get more than 12 hour of office work on the 13" macbook and the 16" can get me around 9 or 10 if i'm not maxed out on brightness and in low power mode.
The 16" display is the biggest battery draw. if turned down in brightness and put in low power mode can probably get close to the advertised hours but if maxed out....maybe 4 hours.
I think i did get more than 12 hour of office work on the 13" macbook and the 16" can get me around 9 or 10 if i'm not maxed out on brightness and in low power mode.
The 16" display is the biggest battery draw. if turned down in brightness and put in low power mode can probably get close to the advertised hours but if maxed out....maybe 4 hours.
A couple more observations after using my MBP 14 M1 Max off the battery for work.
(I should add that I normally work at home with it plugged in, charged to 80% with Al Dente, but sometimes need to cycle commute and want to keep weight to a minimum by not taking the power supply with me)
With my heavy use of browser tabs and web-apps and memory (typically using nearly all my 32GB RAM and using a couple of GB of swap), I seem to be getting at least 7.5-8 hours of "screen time" with 10-15% battery life left at the end of the working day. This equates to about another 1.5-2 hours left, so I would be fairly comfortable in getting 10 hours usage out of it without worrying about my usage patterns.
This usage includes being plugged into external monitors via HDMI for most of the day and using the laptop screen at about 40-45% brightness.
If I take care to clean up open applications and browser tabs to keep only about about dozen browser tabs and 10-12 applications open, and use the internal screen only, I was getting about 12 hours with some battery left (<10%)
I have it set to use low-power mode on battery, and can see no difference in performance for my usual work.
So far I have felt confident enough to not take the power supply with me, which is a weight saving (on my bike!), and avoids the hassle of plugging in when moving around the office to different desks and rooms.
Out of interest I wondered whether a phone charger would work with the MBP and was happy to find that my 20W iPad charger (which is a relatively small and light USB-C charger) is able to charge the MBP14 while I am still using using it. It is slow (estimates 6-7 hours to charge from 10% battery) when using the machine, but seems to get to full charge in about 3-4 hours when the machine is sleeping). I think this is pretty significant for people who travel or who have a bit of "range anxiety" if they might get caught out during a long day without the power supply (or have to run a more processor/GPU intensive task that will drain the battery more).
I'm pretty happy with this overall!
(I should add that I normally work at home with it plugged in, charged to 80% with Al Dente, but sometimes need to cycle commute and want to keep weight to a minimum by not taking the power supply with me)
With my heavy use of browser tabs and web-apps and memory (typically using nearly all my 32GB RAM and using a couple of GB of swap), I seem to be getting at least 7.5-8 hours of "screen time" with 10-15% battery life left at the end of the working day. This equates to about another 1.5-2 hours left, so I would be fairly comfortable in getting 10 hours usage out of it without worrying about my usage patterns.
This usage includes being plugged into external monitors via HDMI for most of the day and using the laptop screen at about 40-45% brightness.
If I take care to clean up open applications and browser tabs to keep only about about dozen browser tabs and 10-12 applications open, and use the internal screen only, I was getting about 12 hours with some battery left (<10%)
I have it set to use low-power mode on battery, and can see no difference in performance for my usual work.
So far I have felt confident enough to not take the power supply with me, which is a weight saving (on my bike!), and avoids the hassle of plugging in when moving around the office to different desks and rooms.
Out of interest I wondered whether a phone charger would work with the MBP and was happy to find that my 20W iPad charger (which is a relatively small and light USB-C charger) is able to charge the MBP14 while I am still using using it. It is slow (estimates 6-7 hours to charge from 10% battery) when using the machine, but seems to get to full charge in about 3-4 hours when the machine is sleeping). I think this is pretty significant for people who travel or who have a bit of "range anxiety" if they might get caught out during a long day without the power supply (or have to run a more processor/GPU intensive task that will drain the battery more).
I'm pretty happy with this overall!
My new strategy during the day is putting the Macbook in Low Mode Power around 50%, gets that extra 1h if you need it. I also take this strategy during Microsoft Teams calls as it reduces the wattage used by the computer.
I'm really hoping that with the M2 Pro or M3 Pro, we get more efficiency cores instead of having 2 extra performance cores, that would be really nice and it would allow us to have 12h-14h battery life.
At the end of the day if you want max CPU performance there should be an option for M1 Max to have more P cores and leave the M1 Pro with more E cores.
Just my thoughts.
On days I only do quick 5-8 mins call with like 2-3 persons I can reach the end of the day of 7h-8h of work with 20%, If I spend like 3-4h in meetings I have to charge 2 hours before 18H or my computer will die.
I'm really hoping that with the M2 Pro or M3 Pro, we get more efficiency cores instead of having 2 extra performance cores, that would be really nice and it would allow us to have 12h-14h battery life.
At the end of the day if you want max CPU performance there should be an option for M1 Max to have more P cores and leave the M1 Pro with more E cores.
Just my thoughts.
The issue really is the video calls especially if it's Teams, if I check my energy impact on Activity Monitor or Powermetrics, you will definitely see Microsoft Teams / Zoom is the culript of the high wattage usage during work.
On days I only do quick 5-8 mins call with like 2-3 persons I can reach the end of the day of 7h-8h of work with 20%, If I spend like 3-4h in meetings I have to charge 2 hours before 18H or my computer will die.
Make sure the application you use is Apple Silicon type. You can check this on Activity Monitor and see "kind" column.
Intel kind use a lot of power.
I just upgraded from an M1 Pro 14" to an M1 Max 14". I see a slight difference, but I can still use it for most of the day without plugging in. And I typically plug it in while I'm eating lunch for 30 minutes, which brings it back up to almost full.
There's plenty of battery life to last for a cross-country flight, and most airports and even many seats on the plane now have power. It's a non-issue for me at this point.
There's plenty of battery life to last for a cross-country flight, and most airports and even many seats on the plane now have power. It's a non-issue for me at this point.
I recently bought a dual outlet type C charger and second MagSafe cable to use this for both my MBP 14" and iPhone or iPad while at work.
It runs fine.