Mid 2012 MacBook Pro Battery Life

zeemi · Aug 23, 2012

My (classic) MacBook Pro (2.6Ghz version, hi-res antiglare + 750GB@7200rpm) finally arrived yesterday and I absolutely love it.

My only concern so far is that the battery live seems to be rather on the low end, especially considering what I've heard and read before about MBP battery life.

On a full charge he tends to indicate between 4-4.5 hours.

That is at about 40% brightness, graphic cards switching enabled and some basic programs opened (mail, skype, chrome with some light browsing, dropbox, google drive and some other small menubar widgets such as little snitch and istat).

I haven't accurately measured, but 4 hours seems to be what I get out of it as well (so it's not just messed up time calculations) at (in my eyes) rather light usage.

At first I figured it's Mountain Lion, as some people reported low battery live, but I just upgraded to 10.8.1 and the issue still seems to persist (at 80% battery charge I'm getting 3:15 indicated).

I also checked activity monitor and none of the applications seems to have an extraordinary drain on the cpu (mail with 3% is currently the highest).

Anyone else experiencing similar issues (especially after upgrading to 10.8.1)?

GGJstudios · Aug 23, 2012

zeemi said:
On a full charge he tends to indicate between 4-4.5 hours.

That's pretty normal. There are many factors that impact your battery life. See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details, including tips on how to maximize your battery life.

This should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions:

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ

miles01110 · Aug 23, 2012

Seems normal to me.

Interstella5555 · Aug 23, 2012

zeemi said:
My (classic) MacBook Pro (2.6Ghz version, hi-res antiglare + 750GB@7200rpm) finally arrived yesterday and I absolutely love it.

My only concern so far is that the battery live seems to be rather on the low end, especially considering what I've heard and read before about MBP battery life.

On a full charge he tends to indicate between 4-4.5 hours.

That is at about 40% brightness, graphic cards switching enabled and some basic programs opened (mail, skype, chrome with some light browsing, dropbox, google drive and some other small menubar widgets such as little snitch and istat).

I haven't accurately measured, but 4 hours seems to be what I get out of it as well (so it's not just messed up time calculations) at (in my eyes) rather light usage.

At first I figured it's Mountain Lion, as some people reported low battery live, but I just upgraded to 10.8.1 and the issue still seems to persist (at 80% battery charge I'm getting 3:15 indicated).

I also checked activity monitor and none of the applications seems to have an extraordinary drain on the cpu (mail with 3% is currently the highest).

Anyone else experiencing similar issues (especially after upgrading to 10.8.1)?

Seems normal, a lot of the "light" processes you're using are network dependent, so you're using power for the internet connection pretty much continually as well as whatever you're doing on chrome.

hallux · Aug 23, 2012

That might be a bit on the low end. I unplug mine from charge in the AM, drop it in my bag and it usually stays there all day at work. When I get home it sees pretty constant use, sometimes heavy on stuff that requires the discrete card and I can go most of the night (until i go to bed at 11) without plugging in. If I could stick to the integrated card, I likely could EASILY get the rated 7 hours, or better, from the battery.

zeemi · Aug 23, 2012

hallux said:
That might be a bit on the low end. I unplug mine from charge in the AM, drop it in my bag and it usually stays there all day at work. When I get home it sees pretty constant use, sometimes heavy on stuff that requires the discrete card and I can go most of the night (until i go to bed at 11) without plugging in. If I could stick to the integrated card, I likely could EASILY get the rated 7 hours, or better, from the battery.

I saw you have the 2.3Ghz version, so that might make a difference as well. I have read reports of up to 90 minutes of additional battery life for the 2.3Ghz MacBook Pro, but do think those are exaggerated.

I guess I will need to use if for a while longer before I'll be able to actually say whether my battery performance is in the norm or not.

The fact that the majority here things it's in the norm is definitely reassuring.

Newbie MacUser · Aug 23, 2012

zeemi said:
My (classic) MacBook Pro (2.6Ghz version, hi-res antiglare + 750GB@7200rpm) finally arrived yesterday and I absolutely love it.

My only concern so far is that the battery live seems to be rather on the low end, especially considering what I've heard and read before about MBP battery life.

On a full charge he tends to indicate between 4-4.5 hours.

That is at about 40% brightness, graphic cards switching enabled and some basic programs opened (mail, skype, chrome with some light browsing, dropbox, google drive and some other small menubar widgets such as little snitch and istat).

I haven't accurately measured, but 4 hours seems to be what I get out of it as well (so it's not just messed up time calculations) at (in my eyes) rather light usage.

At first I figured it's Mountain Lion, as some people reported low battery live, but I just upgraded to 10.8.1 and the issue still seems to persist (at 80% battery charge I'm getting 3:15 indicated).

I also checked activity monitor and none of the applications seems to have an extraordinary drain on the cpu (mail with 3% is currently the highest).

Anyone else experiencing similar issues (especially after upgrading to 10.8.1)?

Also don't forget to consider the fact that some of you guys opted for the hi-res display. More pixels mean it drains the battery faster. Why do you think they had to put such a MASSIVE battery in the Retina Macbook Pro? The Classic Macbook pro (2012) kept the same battery as the 2011 Macbook Pro's. I know that Ivy bridge and the integrated intel 4000 graphics card as well as the discrete graphics card are slightly more efficient but who knows if those gains are negated by the higher resolution screen. Like some of you already said its largely depended on activity. I would download a battery monitor if I were you to check it out to be sure you didn't get a bad apple from the factory. I use this app called Battery Health (its free from the app store) it will tell you how much your max mAh charge your battery charge out of box was and what it is now. You can see over time how it's capacity degrades after about a year or more probably.

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Mid 2012 MacBook Pro Battery Life

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