Did I get a "lemon" battery in my 14" M1 Pro?

[AW84]

I bought an M1 Pro 14" MBP in March of last year. Battery life seemed very poor, I asked around and everyone just said it was the power of the processors and that it was normal, so I ignored it. But 15 months or so on now, it's only gotten more annoying.

My work MBP, an M1 13" with a few years of use on it, can easily cover a whole 8 hour workday so long as I don't watch much video or use Zoom. This 14", meanwhile, get 3-3.5 hours if I'm lucky. That's no YouTube, no streaming, all unused apps closed, essentially just Safari browsing.

The battery health is already down to 93%, despite it only being used a couple hours 2-3 days a week recreationally, never plugged in past 100%, only accidentally left to charge overnight a couple times. It just chews through battery, and it's really been this bad since the beginning. But yet, it's supposed to have better battery life than the 13". As I type this, the brightness is at 12 clicks, no video or apps are running other than Safari, Mail, and Messages, and it's using 1% roughly every 2-3 minutes. I've tried the brightness lower, to the point I'm straining to see the screen, and it makes no appreciable difference. As a further sign of a poor battery, it can fully charge in about an hour, despite Apple's spec for this model suggesting 2+ hours to fully charge (plugged it in while writing this, went 15% in 5 minutes).

It's out of warranty, but I have called Apple and they have offered to at least look at it when I can get to a Genius Bar. My concern is that a new battery may not even correct it if there's a larger issue that's eating up the battery. Thoughts? Advice?

 

[McScooby]

Could always do a full reinstall in case some system thing is munching the battery in the background. I've got a 14" & find battery life is not as good as a 13" it replaced and can vary wildly from 4hrs to 12hrs when using, then again, I use it on full brightness.

 

[Flav]

You could try opening Activity Monitor and check if there is any unusual process that loads the CPU, also you could have a look at energy usage.

Also, Coconut Battery (https://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/) shows "Discharging with" in watts so you could post it here and compare with other people with similar laptop. For my MacBook Air M1 mostly it is about 3 watts.

 

[arthur486]

If it discharges within 3 hours, the laptop's underside should be at least warm to the touch and the fans should be spinning. I know this isn't *very* scientific, but it's something to keep an eye on. Also, I would do a full reinstall before anything else. Maybe with Sonoma next Monday

In addition, battery health is not a very good metric to look at, since I feel that Apple's battery longevity options are lowering it artificially to keep the battery from being charged to 100% for too long.

 

[dmccloud]

If it discharges within 3 hours, the laptop's underside should be at least warm to the touch and the fans should be spinning. I know this isn't *very* scientific, but it's something to keep an eye on. Also, I would do a full reinstall before anything else. Maybe with Sonoma next Monday

In addition, battery health is not a very good metric to look at, since I feel that Apple's battery longevity options are lowering it artificially to keep the battery from being charged to 100% for too long.

The optimized battery charging option present on both Macs and iOS/iPad OS devices can affect overall battery runtime because it presumes the user will start using their device at the same time every day. So while you might think you're starting the day with 100% charge, the actual charge could be closer to 80-85%. For those individuals working a set schedule where every day begins at the same time, this is not a major issue. For those who work in jobs where the hours can vary wildly, this can create an illusion of lower battery life. You can disable optimized charging by going to Settings > Battery > Battery Health & Charging (this is the same screen where maximum capacity is listed).

 

[AW84]

Watched a couple videos last night on the topic. A refurb with a presumably new battery took a reviewer 2:08 to fully charge, with the lid closed. His also slowed dramatically past 80%. I timed mine while using it (so screen on, web browsers opened) and it went from 0-100% in 1:10, with no slowdown at all beyond 80%. Very strange.

 

[cappo3]

I usually charge my 14" M1 Max with a 30w USB-C charger (it's my work M1 Air's charger, I am too lazy to switch between the two), but I'll test charging speeds tomorrow on the original charger. I have the big charger that came with the Max though, not sure if that makes a difference.

 

[AW84]

So I gave it a proper test. I shut down Chrome and narrowed down to just 4-5 Safari tabs. 12 clicks on brightness, and just went through my normal workday, which is primarily Safari, Slack, Mail, and Messages, and got just over 7 hours from 100-0. I didn't open Photoshop, iMovie, or anything during that period, no YouTube streaming or Spotify playing.

I also closed the lid and charged it from 0-100, which took right at 1h 26m.

Thoughts? Does that seem excessive for a device little more than a year and a half old?

 

[arthur486]

Apple MacBook Pro 14 2023 review: The M2 Pro is slowed down in the small MacBook Pro

In review at Notebookcheck is the brand new MacBook Pro 14 with the M2 Pro, 32 GB RAM and a 120 Hz mini LED panel.

www.notebookcheck.net

From the article:

A complete charging process with the 96-watt power supply takes almost exactly two hours with the device switched on, whereby 50% of the capacity is available again after just over 30 minutes and 80% after one hour.

 

[xraydoc]

So I gave it a proper test. I shut down Chrome and narrowed down to just 4-5 Safari tabs. 12 clicks on brightness, and just went through my normal workday, which is primarily Safari, Slack, Mail, and Messages, and got just over 7 hours from 100-0.

I'm not sure where 12 clicks of brightness puts you, but if it's above 50%, I'd think 7 hours non-stop with wifi on was reasonable. Not great, but likely still within the bell curve.

93% on the battery is suboptimal, however, though depends on how many full charge cycles you have on it. Not sure the battery is quite a lemon, but you didn't win the battery jackpot, I suspect.

My 1 year old 14" M1 Pro MBP, which spends almost all of its time pretending to be a Mac mini on my desk, has 98% battery health (per CoconutBattery Plus) but only 29 full load cycles. Otherwise it sits at 80% max charge thanks to AlDente.

 

[xraydoc]

Watched a couple videos last night on the topic. A refurb with a presumably new battery took a reviewer 2:08 to fully charge, with the lid closed. His also slowed dramatically past 80%. I timed mine while using it (so screen on, web browsers opened) and it went from 0-100% in 1:10, with no slowdown at all beyond 80%. Very strange.

How did this reviewer charge it? High wattage Apple charger via MagSafe, or smaller charger over USB-C? How are you charging it?

 

[AW84]

Wiped the computer clean and reinstalled Sonoma and it's no better. Might even be worse. Any advice?

 

[Coldmode]

At this point you might as well take it to the Genius Bar and have them take a look at it. Not much else we can suggest to do other than running hardware diagnostics, which they'll do at the Apple Store anyway.

 

[Honza1]

Wiped the computer clean and reinstalled Sonoma and it's no better. Might even be worse. Any advice?

Let it run for 24 hours so you are sure indexing and other maintenance is done - there is stuff which is running in the background for some time after installation. Set to 50% brightness and run light test of battery life with some reasonable web sites again. If it does not get above 15 hours (or thereabouts), take it to Genius bar and let them check it. Apple quotes all day battery life for 14 MBP M2 - more than 18 hours. It is rare to achieve what they quote, but it should not be too different either, if you reproduce their tests.

Charging time will depend a lot on charger, cable, and what else is computer doing. It is difficult to use that as gauge of battery performance. My system does not seem to slow down when charging above 80% either.

 

[Fishrrman]

Make an appt at a brick n mortar Apple Store, and take it in for a checkup.

I don't think they'll replace a battery unless it's dropped below 80% of factory capacity.
But it's worth a try.

BE AWARE that you can get the battery replaced on an out-of-warranty MBP for $249, I believe. This includes:
- new Apple-labeled battery
- installation
- a short warranty.
But again, they may not offer you this option until the battery is below 80% of original capacity.

 

[Coldmode]

Another option would be to use Carbon Copy Cloner to make a backup of your drive, then do a clean install of macOS and then try using the machine without any 3rd party software to see if there is any software going haywire the background and depleting the battery.