M1 MacBook Pro real-world battery performance

[pjv1990]

Hi everyone,

This is my first post on this site in a LONG time. It's nice to be back amongst the Apple community, the best tech community there is!.. So yesterday I finally delivery of my brand-new M1 MacBook Pro (Space Grey, 8GB Ram, 512GB SSD) and I'm absolutely over the moon with it. I know that there was a lot of hype leading up to the launch of the M1 era Macs, what Apple was claiming was so dramatic and revolutionary, it almost seemed like a pure fantasy. However I, like many others, have been utterly blown away by the performance of the Apple Silicone M1 MacBook's. This genuinely feels like a new era in personal computing. What Apple have done with these new machines is so overwhelmingly good it's almost frightening. I cannot even begin to express how happy and overwhelmed I am with my new MacBook Pro. Intel and other manufacturers are in serious trouble, they have a lot of ground to catch up.

On to the main point of my thread, the real-world battery performance. Like I said, I've only had the computer for 24 hours so I don't have a good grasp on it's battery performance over a range of tasks/uses.

For those of you who use full brightness, what kind of battery life have you been getting in real-world use and how does this stack up to Apple's claims? What I also want to know is how has your battery life been when using more intense programs (gaming, video editing, music creation etc...)? Using my limited experience with the new Pro, light web-browsing uses 4/5% per hour, but when watching 1080p/4K videos on a site like YouTube it's a little more taxing on the battery. However I've noticed that when using Garageband (I write and record a lot of music) the battery seems to drain significantly faster, and doesn't seem to be AS good as I hoped it would be. I was too busy working on some music to really notice just how much battery was used per hour.

Does that sound normal to you?

Are your experiences the same as mine? I'd really love to know what kind of battery performance you're getting in real-world use, with information on what apps you're using & how it drains the battery (percentage) per hour/how many hours you're getting from a full charge. I'm just looking for peace of mind and to know that everything is alright with my battery performance.

That's all I wanted to know, I'm really sorry for the long post (I'm just so excited to talk about my new MacBook Pro 😆 It's great to be part of the community again).

I hope you're all having a lovely day!

Kind Regards,
Pete.

 

[DaneTheGr8]

Hi Pete, welcome to the M1 chip! I have found the battery life on my MacBook incredible that I do not charge it for days. I just use it for work - emails, documents, doing presentations, watching some Youtube, listening to Podcasts and music etc and it is in the park of a good 19 hours of battery. I generally let the screen auto set it's brightness and is more or less around 60% but when working outside I am on full brightness.

My work platform on my prior Intel Mac quickly drained my battery to drop up to 20% in a half an hour as it was a huge power hog - but this M1 drops like a percentage in that time.

A full day of work can range between 18% of battery use on this MacBook Pro M1 and it's amazing.

I have not really used Garageband or any other apps you have used to give you an indication but I do often watch a couple of Youtube videos and have not noticed a dent in battery life but I seldom constantly check the battery percentage to avoid giving myself Battery anxiety - which is something my old MacBook Pro Intel gave me. With the M1 I never have to worry.

Enjoy your new MacBook Pro!

 

[BacioiuC]

A good game dev session with Unity on the M1 brings down to 0% battery in about 6 hours. But I'm talking intensive 3D rendering on it, in real time with a lot of overhead from the tools I use.

if I just use it to browse the web, e-mail, chat and video? Well I'm on 64% battery at 10 PM and I've only charged it yesterday before going to bed and turned it on today at around 11 AM. Been using it almost non-stop for the past 11 hours and less than 50% has drained.

 

[TheSynchronizer]

Keep in mind that on a new system there are a LOT of one time background processes, updates, indexing etc. etc. running. I'd say the battery life you experience throughout your first week is not representative of the battery life you will get normally, due to the normal process of you installing your apps, configuring them, having them auto configure themselves, index their files in the background... the list goes on.

That being said, I can use Logic Pro X pretty much all day long, with Microsoft Edge (10-15 tabs), Spotify, Messages, then do some Zoom calls, do some office work, and even play some Apple Arcade games and I'll end the day at 45-50% with auto brightness.

So in my M1 Macbook Pro case, I'd say it genuinely reaches it's claims and I get 18-20 hours of battery with varied heavy usage. Truly magnificent experience

 

[rgarjr]

How much more powerful are these M1 bad bois compared to my 2013 15" rMBP i7-4850HQ

 

[BacioiuC]

How much more powerful are these M1 bad bois compared to my 2013 15" rMBP i7-4850HQ

A crap ton more powerful. M1 Pro performance is better than a 2018 15" MBPro in CPU and Performance and punching up there with the base 16" Graphics wise. CPU wise, in theory, is better than 2019 16" (probably not the top spec).

So yeah, a crap ton better.

 

[rgarjr]

A crap ton more powerful. M1 Pro performance is better than a 2018 15" MBPro in CPU and Performance and punching up there with the base 16" Graphics wise. CPU wise, in theory, is better than 2019 16" (probably not the top spec).

So yeah, a crap ton better.

damn, didnt know they were that beastie

 

[jerryk]

Regarding Apple's battery ratings/claims, they do not do them with screen at full brightness. The test conditions for the 13" were:

The Apple TV app movie playback test measures battery life by playing back HD 1080p content with display brightness set to 8 clicks from bottom. Battery life varies by use and configuration. See apple.com/batteries for more information.

But with the M1, regardless of screen setting, the battery life is pretty amazing as is the system's performance.

 

[pjv1990]

Keep in mind that on a new system there are a LOT of one time background processes, updates, indexing etc. etc. running. I'd say the battery life you experience throughout your first week is not representative of the battery life you will get normally, due to the normal process of you installing your apps, configuring them, having them auto configure themselves, index their files in the background... the list goes on.

That being said, I can use Logic Pro X pretty much all day long, with Microsoft Edge (10-15 tabs), Spotify, Messages, then do some Zoom calls, do some office work, and even play some Apple Arcade games and I'll end the day at 45-50% with auto brightness.

So in my M1 Macbook Pro case, I'd say it genuinely reaches it's claims and I get 18-20 hours of battery with varied heavy usage. Truly magnificent experience

I hope this is true as my battery life isn't close to what was being advertised. From a full charge the battery has dropped 16 percent in just over two hours. That doesn't seem right to me. Perhaps it's just because it's a new machine, but even at full brightness that battery drop doesn't sit right with me.

For more information, I've just been watching 1080p videos on Safari.

Do you think I should contact Apple regarding this? They'll probably just say that the battery is in perfect health using their diagnostic tools (like they did with my iPhone SE 2nd generation that also had battery drain issues).

However, like you said the system is only three days old and there might be processes running that are affecting battery life.

I really don't know what to do.

 

[pjv1990]

Here is a screenshot of the energy tab of activity monitor. This really doesn't seem right to me. I'd really appreciate any help you could offer.

 

[Black John Smith]

is it true that m1 macbook pro 13" 2020 battery last longer than m1 macbook pro 14" 2021?

here's I captured the m1 macbook pro 14" battery level. both are used for daily routine.

But I can feel that the m1 mbp 13" 2020 battery is better than the 14" 2021.

I've tried to set display setting I even reduce the mbp 14" display preset and refresh rate.
Please cmiiw.

 

[pshufd]

I have an M1 Pro MacBook Pro 16 and the difference in power consumption between monitor off and full brightness is 13 watts. That's just for the monitor. So the monitor alone would last 7 hours on a 100 watt hour battery.

Normal idle power consumption at my usual brightness is about 2.7 watts so the laptop would last a ridiculous amount of time doing nothing but it's higher when I'm doing things.

If you want to get objective data, I recommend getting a power meter. They run about $13 - $20 and tell you how much wall power you're using so you can run all sorts of experiments and get actual power consumption data. They're also handy in determining if you have appliances and electronics sucking down a lot of power.