Vivaldi browser (Chromium-based, M1 optimized) is my main app. I generally get 6-8 hours of use on a full battery. Is this normal?
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Mac M1 battery usage - is 6-7 hours normal?
- Thread starter madonnaragu
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- battery macbook air m1
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How long have you had the machine? Are you on the Air or the Pro? Any other peripherals hooked up? How bright do you typically keep your screen?
Hi there!
I have the Macbook Air M1. I have had it for 3-4 weeks. Nothing hooked up. Screen usually at 80-90% during the day.
I just switched from a Dell laptop where the screen was really bright even at 70%, but on my new Mac, I have to go up to 90-100% to achieve the same. Is it the screen brightness that's the culprit or could it be something else?
It's hard to say. I am not super familiar with Vivaldi, but in general Safari will run the best in terms of battery life. I would also check and make sure you dont have other processes working in the background. Screen brightness may very well be the culprit however if you are cranking it that high all the time
Check the Energy tab in Activity Monitor and sort by "12 hr Power" to see what application had the largest impact on your Mac's power consumption. You can also click the battery icon in the menu bar at the top right to get a quick glance at what is currently draining the battery the most.
I think that's normal for 80-90% brightness. The display brightness will consume considerable power.
Brightness level is why you are only getting 6 - 7 hours.
We've discovered the culprit! Screen brightness that high will reduce your battery significantly. It isn't anything else. Try keeping your brightness one notch below 50% and see how long it lasts. Why do you need such high brightness anyway? Having brightness that high in most environments would hurt my eyes.
I'm not sure what percentage I keep mine on but I prefer it with 4 to 5 bars.
It lasts a good 16+ hours on a full charge.
Apple's battery tests are conducted with the brightness at 8 clicks from minimum (50% brightness).
Try that, and see if your battery life matches or is close to Apple's claims.
Try that, and see if your battery life matches or is close to Apple's claims.
Do you have auto brightness adjust and true tone on? If so, try turning those off and you might find a lower brightness setting to be acceptable.
Chromium is well-known to be a battery killer. Plus there are websites that are quite horrible for your battery life. Open Activity Monitor and check out CPU usage and energy usage. And just maybe, just for fun, try using Safari.
Thank you all for your input and advice. I find anything under 70% way too dark, especially during the day. I have auto-brightness off but I do have TrueTone turned on. I will try turning that off to see what impact it has and if I can lower the brightness of the screen.
The Activity Monitor says right now:
Vivaldi 30%
AdGuard 3.5%
Spotlight 2%
and the rest is under 1%
The Activity Monitor says right now:
Vivaldi 30%
AdGuard 3.5%
Spotlight 2%
and the rest is under 1%
If 30% processor activity on Vivaldi is not a temporary peak, but its "normal" load, you should try Safari. 30% definitely sounds too much.
I will keep an eye on it. The issue is that I am reliant on a number of extensions that are only available for Chrome/Vivaldi.
TBH I don't think that's going to turn out to be unusual at all, depending on your usage and screen brightness. The Air has significantly less battery life than the Pro (but still very good considering). I tested both an M1 Air and an M1 Pro recently for education-rollout purposes and they were both excellent, much better than the Intel machines they replace, but I didn't get anything close to the advertised battery life. I never do; I like my screens at, or very close to, 100% bright (I so often work with photos and other media where the screen brightness effects the appearance that I simply end up leaving the screens very bright all the time) and I use my machines HARD; iMovie exports, Steam game streaming from my game rig, and even played Disco Elysium Mac (through rosetta 2) version. Yet I still consistently got very reasonable battery run-time out of the machines. You'll only get close to the 'optimum' tests if you turn your brightness way down and make sure to use the most optimized apps (Safari) and also don't do anything that really pushes the system hard. As a rule of thumb I usually just take what any manufacturer says and divide it by 2 for actual normal usage. So if Apple says "up to 18 hours of battery life" just read "up to 9 hours of battery life under normal usage."
If you really need way more time that what you are getting, and you are within your return window, return the Air and get the M1 Pro.
If you really need way more time that what you are getting, and you are within your return window, return the Air and get the M1 Pro.
Interesting observations, thank you! To be honest, the battery life on the M1 is quite OK - but as you say, it's nowhere near the advertised figures. I've also been thrown off by reviewers and people on forums saying one charge lasts them for days.
I really like the Air because it doesn't have any fans.
Use safari.
IIRC there's an update coming (or already rolled out?) that lets you use Chrome extensions in Safari. Perhaps best of both worlds for you.
Also consider if you actually need those extensions.
IIRC there's an update coming (or already rolled out?) that lets you use Chrome extensions in Safari. Perhaps best of both worlds for you.
Also consider if you actually need those extensions.
Just in case it's not obvious: Do you need to use your MacBook without connection to power? My iPhone is not usually plugged in, but my Macs are plugged in most of the time. If you can plug it in, then plug it in.
Thanks, I'll check it out. Although, Vivaldi is brilliant - I can sync my tabs, bookmarks and settings between my Mac, PC and Android phone. Plus, it offers such an amazing level of customization that it'll be hard to switch.
I've disabled and removed all the extensions I don't need for now.
I don't *need* to but it's so nice being unplugged and freely moving around. I just wanted to check if the battery time I was getting was normal. It seems like it is?
The Mac air M1 does have amazing battery life. (Depending on screen brightness of course)
I game on mine quite a bit. And the games I run are super demanding too. One game I play frequently will use around 11GB-12GB of ram with my 16GB M1.
Anyways, this game makes the system warm! It doesn’t throttle, but it certainly heats the exterior aluminum body up to 40C around the keyboard area.
With a reasonable brightness of 6 or 7 clicks from zero. I can get about 5+ hours of continuous gaming. But I sacrifice brightness for longer gaming sessions.
The system is super efficient. It’s amazing how these laptops can run so well without being plugged in at all. That’s a lot of
gaming time right there.
As for all day battery life. I think it is easily achieved. (Depending on what your doing of course. Most people are casually using their machines throughout the day. I have stretched my M1 Air 1.5 days before charging it. I was watching movies, videos, gaming, surfing the web, etc. etc. And it carried in to the next day pretty good!
I game on mine quite a bit. And the games I run are super demanding too. One game I play frequently will use around 11GB-12GB of ram with my 16GB M1.
Anyways, this game makes the system warm! It doesn’t throttle, but it certainly heats the exterior aluminum body up to 40C around the keyboard area.
With a reasonable brightness of 6 or 7 clicks from zero. I can get about 5+ hours of continuous gaming. But I sacrifice brightness for longer gaming sessions.
The system is super efficient. It’s amazing how these laptops can run so well without being plugged in at all. That’s a lot of
gaming time right there.
As for all day battery life. I think it is easily achieved. (Depending on what your doing of course. Most people are casually using their machines throughout the day. I have stretched my M1 Air 1.5 days before charging it. I was watching movies, videos, gaming, surfing the web, etc. etc. And it carried in to the next day pretty good!
Doesn't running brightness at 100% reduce the screen lifetime, causing it to dim? That was the case in the past ...
Nice! What do you play? 😄
6-7 clicks from zero? That's SO dark for me. Anything under 10 clicks is too dark. Do we all have different preferences when it comes to how bright we like our screens, or do we actually have different screens? I remember my Dell XPS had to be replaced and the new machine had a different panel that was much brighter.