Retina MacBook Pro Beats 18 Windows 8 Laptops in Battery Life Test

[Hyper-X]

Not this again. Look, it's no secret as to the MBP's battery life. Even on a non-retina MBP, nearly half of the bottom unit is a battery. In the retina MBP over 50% of the unit is a battery.

If the MBP's battery life was so awesome you wouldn't see Macrumors posts in the Macbook section complaining about it.

[vmachiel]

Well.. benefit of making hardware and software i guess

[Brian Y]

Originally Posted by Hyper-X

Not this again. Look, it's no secret as to the MBP's battery life. Even on a non-retina MBP, nearly half of the bottom unit is a battery. In the retina MBP over 50% of the unit is a battery.

If the MBP's battery life was so awesome you wouldn't see Macrumors posts in the Macbook section complaining about it.

Actually, you would. People complain about everything.

And 95% of the time, if you're experiencing battery issues on the MBP, it's a software problem.

[roadbloc]

Originally Posted by skaertus

I would like to know how the retina MacBook Pro would perform, in terms of battery life, running Windows 8 on BootCamp...

This. I'd like to know if it was the hardware or the software (or both) that contributes to the lesser battery life in non-Apple notebooks.

[Kitman]

"Which? is known for scientific approach and detail in its testing."

Not by me, it isn't: each time it covers an area where I have some expertise, I notice it has missed the point/hasn't understood the product/lacks rigour in testing and appraisal.

[skaertus]

Originally Posted by roadbloc

This. I'd like to know if it was the hardware or the software (or both) that contributes to the lesser battery life in non-Apple notebooks.

OS X is known to consume less battery than Windows. So, battery life would take a hit if the MacBook Pro was running Windows instead of OS X. I would like to know, however, by how much.

[Concorde Rules]

Originally Posted by Xenomorph

My 2010 MacBook Pro gets *pathetic* battery life if the GeForce card kicks in - which is ALL THE TIME.

I tried using gfxCardStatus to disable it, but it just causes some things to crash.

My battery has 91% life (6308 mAh of 6900 mAh), but I still only get around 2 Hours of battery on a full charge.

Then there is something wrong with your mac or what your doing with it.

My 2010 15" still repeatedly manages to get 5 hours browsing life, and that is with two users logged in!!

[MH01]

Been living in UK for the last 7 years, never heard of Which?

[kyjaotkb]

In other news, some smart-ass newspaper found that the BMW M5 has more horsepower than the Dacia Logan...

No kidding, is everyone so amazed that a $1800 laptop gets more battery than a bunch of $1000 laptops?

[Hyper-X]

Originally Posted by Brian Y

Actually, you would. People complain about everything.

And 95% of the time, if you're experiencing battery issues on the MBP, it's a software problem.

People will find anything to complain about but saying 95% of the battery problems on a MBP being software is nothing but conjecture, there's nothing to support that as a fact in any degree. My MBP's battery is clearly of a larger capacity than any PC laptop I own (even with an extended capacity battery) and the rMBP has an array of batteries strung up together in which no other laptop (to my knowledge), has.

You can clearly see the comments from other folks, already concluding that OS X had to be more efficient simply due to the limited data being presented. To be completely fair all operating systems have to be tested on the exact same piece of hardware to make such a statement.

The same could be same for the opposite scenario, would OS X fair decently on a non-Macbook PC (assuming all drivers amongst other things are available) designed to run on Windows 7 or 8? We won't know until it's actually done.

The closest I've seen as a fair test is on a Hackintosh which runs both OS X and Windows. In my experience I don't see any significant change in battery times using either OS, in fact it's close enough to be insignificant.

[Winni]

Originally Posted by daneoni

Is it because Mountain Lion is 'leaner' overall than Windows 8 or just has better power saving algorithms?

Maybe someone should compare systems from the very same price range with Apple's high-cost equipment and not systems that according to the article cost 500 British Pounds LESS than the Apple notebook?

Comparisons of battery lifetime are first and foremost SPECS comparisons; things that Apple users love to hate. So if you want to nail the difference on the software platform you can only do so by either comparing systems with the same hardware specifications -- OR -- by running both software platforms on the SAME computer. So how much difference is there between Windows 8 and OS X on that MacBook Pro? THAT would have been a comparison that actually means something. What we see here is just FUD.

[printz]

Originally Posted by skaertus

OS X is known to consume less battery than Windows.

I wonder if Hackintosh laptops have the same benefit if they run OS X… or it's just the Mac preferring OS X…

[elppa]

Originally Posted by Winni

So how much difference is there between Windows 8 and OS X on that MacBook Pro? THAT would have been a comparison that actually means something. What we see here is just FUD.

Apple does a lot of optimisation in OS X for their own hardware which simply isn't done on Windows. In addition the Windows bootcamp drivers Apple supplies are rarely as well optimised as their OS X equivalents.

It would still come out in the favour of OS X and it would be even less fair.

[cclloyd]

Compare these laptops either all running W8 or all running OS X (via hackintosh)

[PeteJames]

I'm pretty impressed in battery life improvements. I think my 4 year old macbook pro barely made it 2 or 2.5 hours from new.

What could I roughly expect from the 15 inch retina macbook pro?

[tekboi]

Makes sense since the MBP isn't touch screen and no longer has an optical drive. Compare those to a 2011 MBP and lets see what happens...

[tmiw]

Originally Posted by Xenomorph

My 2010 MacBook Pro gets *pathetic* battery life if the GeForce card kicks in - which is ALL THE TIME.

I tried using gfxCardStatus to disable it, but it just causes some things to crash.

My battery has 91% life (6308 mAh of 6900 mAh), but I still only get around 2 Hours of battery on a full charge.

I have the same exact laptop and have had no real problems with gfxCardStatus. However, I think you might not be getting all of the benefits from it because (at least for me) it seems to constantly switch back to "dynamic switching". I notice this most often with Google Chrome when I have to exit it for updates. Which version did you try?

[cjmillsnun]

Really they should've been testing this with a 13" cMBP rather than a rMBP. It would get the price comparisons closer.