MBP 13" 2017 - battery life

[DonnaMarilyn]

I bought my new laptop last week. It's advertised as having up to 10 hours battery life. On the two occasions I've used it unconnected, however, the battery has been down to 80% after just 1 hour. This implies the battery isn't likely to last more than 5 hours. Not acceptable.

There's nothing 'heavy' going on. No gaming, no movies, etc. I use the machine mainly for my work (editing documents using Word Office 2011); for viewing YouTube videos featuring art tutorials; and for the usual occasional online searches for information, etc.

Have any of you experienced an annoyingly short battery life on your new MBP?
Is there a way that the battery life can be boosted?

Thanks!

Donna

 

[zedsdead]

Typical actual battery life for the touch bar models. This has been a longstanding issue since the redesign in 2016. Apple drastically decreased the battery size, and if the processor spins up at all it drains at the same pace as the older machine, thus negating any potential savings. Only extremely minor tasks and low screen bright (screen is much brighter also) will get decent life out of it. ntb models should do better.

 

[DonnaMarilyn]

Thanks for your prompt response, and for the information, zedsdead.

So Apple's claim regarding a 10-hour battery life is fraudulent.

Donna

 

[Marc_S]

I bought my new laptop last week. It's advertised as having up to 10 hours battery life. On the two occasions I've used it unconnected, however, the battery has been down to 80% after just 1 hour. This implies the battery isn't likely to last more than 5 hours. Not acceptable.

There's nothing 'heavy' going on. No gaming, no movies, etc. I use the machine mainly for my work (editing documents using Word Office 2011); for viewing YouTube videos featuring art tutorials; and for the usual occasional online searches for information, etc.

Have any of you experienced an annoyingly short battery life on your new MBP?
Is there a way that the battery life can be boosted?

Thanks!

Donna

[doublepost=1511783839][/doublepost]You're not alone! 2 weeks ago I also bought a 13" 2017 MBP with Touchbar and experienced significantly less battery life than advertised when doing/running YouTube video, photoshop editing and or surfing the web whilst multitasking. Approx HALF of advertised 10-hour life. Very surprising! I have friends with 2015 MBP's getting 7 hours easily. This is the only disappointing thing about the laptop. Very surprised at Apple. I'm raising an issue with Apple support today. Sorry I can't give you any advice.

 

[MikeThicke]

Thanks for your prompt response, and for the information, zedsdead.

So Apple's claim regarding a 10-hour battery life is fraudulent.

Donna

Not necessarily, but they conduct battery life tests under very specific circumstances that don’t match how most of us use our machines.

 

[DonnaMarilyn]

Thank you for your input, Marc. I'll be interested to hear what the Apple support team says. I plan to visit my own local support centre on Wednesday.

MikeThicke, I take your point about the testing circumstances. Makes me think, though, that their criteria must be few. I believe my own usage is quite light in comparison to other users (e.g. gamers and/or those who create videos/movies, do photo editing, or watch movies regularly on their laptop, etc.).

Other than the clearly disappointing battery life, however, I'm happy with the machine.

 

[Fishrrman]

What apps are you using?
Do you use Chrome?

 

[DonnaMarilyn]

What apps are you using?
Do you use Chrome?

No, I use Safari.

 

[MikeThicke]

MikeThicke, I take your point about the testing circumstances. Makes me think, though, that their criteria must be few. I believe my own usage is quite light in comparison to other users (e.g. gamers and/or those who create videos/movies, do photo editing, or watch movies regularly on their laptop, etc.).

Yes, it seems their battery life estimates are more out-of-line with actual use than in previous generations.

 

[Zynq]

Hello. I've just got my new 13" touchbar pro delivered yesterday and I'm noticing very poor battery life myself. I'm very surprised at this, as I'm only surfing and using youtube, albeit on google chrome. Either way a sub 6-hour duration is very disappointing.

To those who speak with apple support can you share what you learn about this issue? Is there a way to improve battery life?

 

[ZapNZs]

Running the battery from 100% to 80% and estimating runtime based on this is not necessarily an accurate representation of runtime - in some cases, it is highly inaccurate. You will literally have to time the runtime until you reach 10-15% capacity, and you may have to repeat this test several times. Further, if you have only used the battery twice, estimate accuracy on a brand new machine may not be completely accurate until you use the battery more.

The 10 hour time estimate is dependent on a variety of factors. In some cases, you can get much more than 10 hours. In other cases, much less.

During your usage, have you noticed if the fans are running at all?

Have you gone into the Activity Monitor to take a look at current CPU usage and Energy usage? (be sure to VIEW-->show all processes). We can use this to rule out some specific process is nuking your runtimes - for example, the MS Office Auto Updaters running in a continuous loop trying to autoupdate, processes indicating the system is indexing, or something random.