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TigerMSTR

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 30, 2014
264
103
I'm surprised by how "poor" the M1 Air's battery life is with streaming video. On YouTube, Netflix and Amazon Prime (all via Safari), I'm consistently getting around 10 to 11 hours of streaming, which is a far cry from the 18 hours claimed by Apple, and the performance seen in various M1 Air reviews.

What's even more surprising is that I'm getting equivalent or better battery life when using VSCode, Xcode and the iOS Simulator, which I'd consider to be far more intensive work than streaming video.

The laptop hits in excess of 15 hours when just doing general web browsing and word processing.

It's hard to be disappointed at "only" 10 hours of streaming video, but the relatively poor streaming video battery performance compared to actually intensive work is perplexing.
 
Last edited:

LuisN

macrumors 6502a
Mar 30, 2013
737
688
Torres Vedras, Portugal
I'm surprised by how "poor" the M1 Air's battery life is with streaming video. On YouTube, Netflix and Amazon Prime (all via Safari), I'm consistently getting around 10 to 11 hours of streaming, which is a far cry from the 18 hours claimed by Apple, and the performance seen in various M1 Air reviews.

What's even more surprising is that I'm getting equivalent or better battery life when using VSCode, Xcode and the iOS Simulator, which I'd consider to be far more intensive work than streaming video.

The laptop hits in excess of 15 hours when just doing general web browsing and word processing.

It's hard to be disappointed at "only" 10 hours of streaming video, but the relatively poor streaming video battery performance compared to actually intensive work is perplexing.
Apple claims 18 hours using AppleTV app
 

jerryk

macrumors 604
Nov 3, 2011
7,421
4,208
SF Bay Area
Brightness can impact on battery life.
Agreed. Apple is very specific about the brightness of the display in their battery life estimates. I think 60% or so is their test setting. I know if you set the brightness close to 100% you will use your battery much faster.
 
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