Not too great battery life on the MBP 14

[almdoodler]

Hey everyone,

I'm experiencing not too great battery life on my MBP 14 M1 Pro.
I probably get around 5hours out of it with medium use (some TFT gaming, Figma, Discord, Whatsapp, maybe some Photoshop and A LOT of Chrome tabs).

Is that normal? When should I go and check in with Apple?

The numbers advertised by Apple seem way higher and people on the internet are claiming crazy numbers which I find hard to believe looking at my device. Should I be concerned about owning a faulty unit?

 

[ascender]

I don't know what Figma is, but I know if I have Chrome, WhatsApp or any gaming going, they will all be highlighted as using significant energy under batter status. Chrome is a real memory hog and anything using GPUs will run the battery down. How bright do you have your screen set as that's another setting to bear in mind?

Remember that Apple's batter tests aren't representative of how people use their machines - they're falsely constructed to produce positive numbers. Have a look at someone trying to reproduce conditions to get the max-claimed battery life for watching videos - was it Joanna Stern at WSJ who did it this time round?

In the real world, you're likely to get closer to those if you're just doing general productivity I'd say. As soon as you do anything intensive or start using apps like the above, all bets are off.

Edited to remove the word falsely.

 

[Rashy]

There is at least one similar thread out there already. Look and post there.
Mods, close please.

 

[haruhiko]

Hi there. A few days ago I noticed significant battery usage for the Mac WhatsApp app, you can check the activity monitor. My M1 Pro 14” chip temperature increased to 62’C. Once I quit the WhatsApp app, the temperature went back to 45’C. For your reference.

 

[almdoodler]

There is at least one similar thread out there already. Look and post there.
Mods, close please.

I did look for them first but I couldn't find some with actual answers other than "I used my macbook for 2 hours and lost 1%" which doesn't seem realistic at all or at least not applicable to my situation

 

[almdoodler]

I don't know what Figma is, but I know if I have Chrome, WhatsApp or any gaming going, they will all be highlighted as using significant energy under batter status. Chrome is a real memory hog and anything using GPUs will run the battery down. How bright do you have your screen set as that's another setting to bear in mind?

Remember that Apple's batter tests aren't representative of how people use their machines - they're falsely constructed to produce positive numbers. In the real world, you're likely to get closer to those if you're just doing general productivity I'd say. As soon as you do anything intensive or start using apps like the above, all bets are off.

You are right. I just charged my Macbook to 100% and it's telling me 11:30 battery life now. Yesterday WindowServer was going crazy and with the same usage I got 4h. I think it really is just very volatile.

I usually use a dual monitor setup and just unchecked the seperate spaces option in the mission control settings. That seems to have helped a ton.

 

[almdoodler]

Hi there. A few days ago I noticed significant battery usage for the Mac WhatsApp app, you can check the activity monitor. My M1 Pro 14” chip temperature increased to 62’C. Once I quit the WhatsApp app, the temperature went back to 45’C. For your reference.

Good point, I'll check that out. Thank you!

 

[Ynk]

It's almost impossible to provide any advice on this as it can last anywhere from a couple of hours under very heavy load to 10+ hrs under light load.

It has a 70 watt hour battery - You can download "coconutBattery" and leave it open, you will see "Discharging with x Watts"

If you are discharging with 10 Watts for example it will last 7 hrs, 15 Watts 4.5hrs etc.

You can then adjust brightness/apps etc to see how this impacts your power consumption

 

[almdoodler]

It's almost impossible to provide any advice on this as it can last anywhere from a couple of hours under very heavy load to 10+ hrs under light load.

It has a 70 watt hour battery - You can download "coconutBattery" and leave it open, you will see "Discharging with x Watts"

If you are discharging with 10 Watts for example it will last 7 hrs, 15 Watts 4.5hrs etc.

You can then adjust brightness/apps etc to see how this impacts your power consumption

That's really insightful. I'll keep it running and have a look at that!

 

[MauiPa]

I don't know what Figma is, but I know if I have Chrome, WhatsApp or any gaming going, they will all be highlighted as using significant energy under batter status. Chrome is a real memory hog and anything using GPUs will run the battery down. How bright do you have your screen set as that's another setting to bear in mind?

Remember that Apple's batter tests aren't representative of how people use their machines - they're falsely constructed to produce positive numbers. In the real world, you're likely to get closer to those if you're just doing general productivity I'd say. As soon as you do anything intensive or start using apps like the above, all bets are off.

You are wrong on your statement “falsely constructed” they are very clearly laid out benchmarks doing certain explained tasks, very truthful and scrutinized results. If you simply meant to say they are not typical use case, and don’t cover all uses, you should say that

You are right on chrome - it is a poorly designed crapApp Who in their right mind would simply re-instantiate a single tab process for each open tab? Lazy, lazy,lazy. I keep reading about their getting better, but it doesn’t show in results. I understand how people like the UI - come on Google

 

[jonblatho]

Who in their right mind would simply re-instantiate a single tab process for each open tab? Lazy, lazy,lazy.

This is on purpose, and every modern browser — including Firefox and Safari, along with other Blink-based browsers — does this, with some minor implementation differences. It allows the browser and other tabs to keep running if a single tab crashes.

 

[ascender]

You are wrong on your statement “falsely constructed” they are very clearly laid out benchmarks doing certain explained tasks, very truthful and scrutinized results. If you simply meant to say they are not typical use case, and don’t cover all uses, you should say that

You are right on chrome - it is a poorly designed crapApp Who in their right mind would simply re-instantiate a single tab process for each open tab? Lazy, lazy,lazy. I keep reading about their getting better, but it doesn’t show in results. I understand how people like the UI - come on Google

You're right, falsely constructed is wrong - maybe not representative of the real world is a better way of putting it?

 

[ChedNasad]

Try using discord in a browser instead of the app. It's an electron app which is known to hit battery life hard. It's also running under rosetta on the new devices so that likely makes it even worse. Chrome is not great for battery either compared to safari but I would imagine like most people who are using it, you need it for something. But if you could drop it for safari that would help too.

 

[throAU]

some TFT gaming

TFT gaming? Proabably the problem.

 

[darkinners]

I have great battery life on my 14" Macbook Pro M1 Max 32 core 64GB ram for general use.
I think once you use Macbook Laptop if you want great battery life, You really need to commit to uses Safari instead of Chrome. The battery life in many cases is double. I know some Chrome's extension are borderline irreplacible I love Chrome's extension as much as the next guy but I only use Chrome when my laptop is plugged in.

I also have a Zendure 100W PD 20000mah power bank with me all the time, it can fast charge the 14" MBP, it's really handy if I really need extra battery life and no wall power socket nearby, it can basically double the laptop's battery.

 

[Vermifuge]

Try using discord in a browser instead of the app. It's an electron app which is known to hit battery life hard. It's also running under rosetta on the new devices so that likely makes it even worse. Chrome is not great for battery either compared to safari but I would imagine like most people who are using it, you need it for something. But if you could drop it for safari that would help too.

THIS! I always felt Discord used a disproportionately large amount of battery relative to what it is actually doing