rMBP 15" Late 2013 - Disappointing Battery Life

Did you try a clean install (backing up your MBP now of course), perhaps something got pulled over from your prior mac that is not playing nice?

While I'm not a huge fan of this app, but it has its place. I recommend grabbing coconut battery It will detail the health of the battery

I have the same model as you, and my battery mileage varies wildly based on whats going on in the background/ screen brightness. Sometimes I can get 9-11 hours if i have only safari open and brightness toned down. But even a virus scan can cut that time in half. In bootcamp I only get ~2 hours on a full charge.

I found as a general rule from the 3 replacements that I went through, that with safari on a static page like macrumors and activity monitor running with brightness set to 50%, you should get roughly 1 hour (or a little more) remaining for every 10% battery you have. So "70% battery = 7 hours remaining" and so on. I'd say try it, and if your getting similar results at least you know its most likely not a hardware issue.

Is it actually getting 4:40? Have you run it dead yet? It does take a few full cycles to calibrate the battery, so the estimation can be way off.

Install Battery Guard (from the App store, free), or similar, see if it reports close to 100% capacity available. My MBP (early-2011), is down to 93% of rated capacity (although useful life on a charge is greater than when new due to the SSD/HDD setup).

If your capacity is good then see what the drain is, screen brightness is a big decider for instance.

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. The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.

simonsi said:

Install Battery Guard (from the App store, free), or similar, see if it reports close to 100% capacity available. My MBP (early-2011), is down to 93% of rated capacity (although useful life on a charge is greater than when new due to the SSD/HDD setup).

If your capacity is good then see what the drain is, screen brightness is a big decider for instance.

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The OP already said they ran Coconut Battery and it was fine.

simon48 said:

Is it actually getting 4:40? Have you run it dead yet? It does take a few full cycles to calibrate the battery, so the estimation can be way off.

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The built-in batteries in the newer Mac unibody notebooks come pre-calibrated and do not require regular calibration like the removable batteries in older Apple notebooks.

GGJstudios said:

The built-in batteries in the newer Mac unibody notebooks come pre-calibrated and do not require regular calibration like the removable batteries in older Apple notebooks.

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They don't require regular calibration, but they sometimes don't give you an accurate estimate until they've been used for a while (and running them dead really helps). My 2013 rMBP was off by hours out of the box, a few hours later and after I ran it dead it was right on.

simon48 said:

They don't require regular calibration, but they sometimes don't give you an accurate estimate until they've been used for a while (and running them dead really helps). My 2013 rMBP was off by hours out of the box, a few hours later and after I ran it dead it was right on.

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When you first setup a Mac, many things are happening that can greatly affect battery life, such as initial indexing of your drive. That doesn't mean the battery readings are inaccurate, just that battery drain may be faster due to the higher initial workload. You never need to fully drain the battery on current Apple notebooks. Read the FAQ I posted for details.

GGJstudios said:

When you first setup a Mac, many things are happening that can greatly affect battery life, such as initial indexing of your drive. That doesn't mean the battery readings are inaccurate, just that battery drain may be faster due to the higher initial workload. You never need to fully drain the battery on current Apple notebooks. Read the FAQ I posted for details.

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I know you don't ever need to run the battery dead. But it can be inaccurate out of the box (I have first hand knowledge of this) and it's not first time indexing, setup etc. I know what that looks like and the CPU wasn't working hard at all.

I have seen (without changing the load) the computer run for over 10 minutes after it said it had 1 minute left. Also this was happening for a couple days before I decided to put the battery through its paces some more (I knew you didn't need to calibrate it so I took a while to decide it might really need a bit of "calibration"). I'm thinking the batteries coming with over 100% heath might be a factor.

simon48 said:

I know you don't ever need to run the battery dead. But it can be inaccurate out of the box (I have first hand knowledge of this) and it's not first time indexing, setup etc. I know what that looks like and the CPU wasn't working hard at all.

I have seen (without changing the load) the computer run for over 10 minutes after it said it had 1 minute left. Also this was happening for a couple days before I decided to put the battery through its paces some more (I knew you didn't need to calibrate it so I took a while to decide it might really need a bit of "calibration"). I'm thinking the batteries coming with over 100% heath might be a factor.

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It is perfectly normal if your battery health (maximum capacity) is more or less than 100%, even when brand new, or if it fluctuates up or down over time. The gradual decline is not in a straight line downward, and it may decline more rapidly at some times and slower at others. It is, after all, only an estimate.

GGJstudios said:

It is perfectly normal if your battery health (maximum capacity) is more or less than 100%, even when brand new, or if it fluctuates up or down over time. The gradual decline is not in a straight line downward, and it may decline more rapidly at some times and slower at others. It is, after all, only an estimate.

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Yes, I know that. So?

I said having over 100% health could be a factor is why the out of the box calibration is off sometimes, I never said it was unusual to have over 100% health. The calibration could default to thinking the battery has 100% health.

simon48 said:

Yes, I know that. So?

I said having over 100% health could be a factor is why the out of the box calibration is off sometimes, I never said it was unusual to have over 100% health. The calibration could default to thinking the battery has 100% health.

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Calibration has no effect on battery health, battery life or battery operation. It only affects the accuracy of battery reporting. Having a battery that initially shows more than 100% health would have no effect on battery life or operation.

GGJstudios said:

Calibration has no effect on battery health, battery life or battery operation. It only affects the accuracy of battery reporting. Having a battery that initially shows more than 100% health would have no effect on battery life or operation.

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I know, we are talking about battery life estimates.

And you're wrong, having a battery with 110% health with have better battery life then the same battery with 100% health.

simon48 said:

I know, we are talking about battery life estimates.

And you're wrong, having a battery with 110% health with have better battery life then the same battery with 100% health.

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You're making the assumption that the one reporting 110% health actually has more capacity than one reporting 100% health. The accuracy of those estimates is not exact, so they could have, in fact, the same capacity. There is no real-world way to accurately compare batteries in two Macs, as it would be extremely rare for both to have exactly the same settings, workload, etc.

rMBP 15" Late 2013 - Disappointing Battery Life

GGJstudios said:

You're making the assumption that the one reporting 110% health actually has more capacity than one reporting 100% health. The accuracy of those estimates is not exact, so they could have, in fact, the same capacity. There is no real-world way to accurately compare batteries in two Macs, as it would be extremely rare for both to have exactly the same settings, workload, etc.

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Right... I never said they're perfect, but they do give you a good idea of the health. Next your going to tell me a battery with 40% health could be the same as a new one and it just looks like it gets 1 hour battery life.

What does this have to do with the OPs problem? Your just saying my theory about what might be contributing the OPs problem. I'm still saying that things like this can happen.

You arguments are just that everything I say might not be true 100% of the time, I know that. How about some facts or first hand experience?

simon48 said:

Right... I never said they're perfect, but they do give you a good idea of the health. Next your going to tell me a battery with 40% health could be the same as a new one and it just looks like it gets 1 hour battery life.

What does this have to do with the OPs problem? Your just saying my theory about what might be contributing the OPs problem. I'm still saying that things like this can happen.

You arguments are just that everything I say might not be true 100% of the time, I know that. How about some facts or first hand experience?

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Calibration is not an issue here. The OP stated they've been using their MBP for about 3 weeks, so it's not just out of the box. They also stated how much uptime they're getting on a charge (about 4 hours), not just what the battery reading is indicating. The actual uptime on a charge before a Mac shuts down is the truest indicator of battery life, regardless of what the readings indicate.

GGJstudios said:

Calibration is not an issue here. The OP stated they've been using their MBP for about 3 weeks, so it's not just out of the box. They also stated how much uptime they're getting on a charge (about 4 hours), not just what the battery reading is indicating. The actual uptime on a charge before a Mac shuts down is the truest indicator of battery life, regardless of what the readings indicate.

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I know actual uptime is the way to go, this is why I asked the OP "Is it actually getting 4:40?" to confirm what they are actually getting as they posted a picture showing the battery life estimation at 4:40 (and we all know that the estimation can lie).

Calibration could be an issue if OP has had it on the charger most of the time since the calibration will get better over time. It's a self (not never) calibrating battery, that doesn't mean it's perfect day one. And yes, I know it's not day one for the OP's computer, but it might not have been used off the charger much yet (again why I asked the OP "Is it actually getting 4:40?").