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Upcoming 12" Macbook Air Retina battery life?
- Thread starter eemton
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We do not know anything about the upcoming lineup, let alone the efficiency of the hardware, the battery size, the display technology, or the efficiency of the software in combination with that hardware.
At this point, we don't 100% know if a rMBA will be released at all. It will most likely be around the 10-14 hours of the current lineup, but that is a complete guess.
Matt
Well do you know in general how having the retina display has affected the battery life of other products like the ipad? Did they need higher capacity batteries to get the same amount of use time?
It is fairly hard to compare when you don't have 2 products that are exactly the same except for a retina screen.
One product gets a retina screen, and new battery technology, new CPU technology, RAM, etc.
If I had to make a reasonable guess it would be 10-11 hours. Something a little more than a rMBP 13" but less than a current MBA 13".
One product gets a retina screen, and new battery technology, new CPU technology, RAM, etc.
If I had to make a reasonable guess it would be 10-11 hours. Something a little more than a rMBP 13" but less than a current MBA 13".
It definitely affects battery life to an extent. For example, the battery in the 13 inch rMBP is larger than the battery in the 13 inch MBA yet the battery life is better on the Air by 3 hours. It's not necessarily an Apples to Apples(technically it is
) comparison due to the difference in clock speeds etc, but it's definitely safe to say it has some affect. That being said, we expect the 12 inch rMBA to have the Broadwell chipset which will bring significantly better power management. The general consensus is, Broadwell will make up the difference in power it will take to power the retina display which should put the battery life somewhere in line with the current 13 inch MBA.
None of this is confirmed and is just my personal opinion. Please don't take it as anything official.
All retina displays are not equal. On top of the number of pixels, there are many display manufacturing techniques. Even between displays of the same resolution, you can get drastically different power usage if the display technology is different.
Matt
It definitely affects battery life to an extent. For example, the battery in the 13 inch rMBP is larger than the battery in the 13 inch MBA yet the battery life is better on the Air by 3 hours. It's not necessarily an Apples to Apples(technically it is
That being said, we expect the 12 inch rMBA to have the Broadwell chipset which will bring significantly better power management. The general consensus is, Broadwell will make up the difference in power it will take to power the retina display which should put the battery life somewhere in line with the current 13 inch MBA.
None of this is confirmed and is just my personal opinion. Please don't take it as anything official.
Do you think the non-retina macbook airs will get the Broadwell chipset treatment as well? What I'd really like is an 11" non-retina (for better battery life) but I'd really like to to have a nice screen with very wide view angles (not even really concerned about having more pixels), so trying to weigh if it would be worth trading the battery for better screen. I'm also interested in being able to charge the laptop using compact/foldable solar panels.
If they come out with a rMBA, they will most likely discontinue the cMBA. An update for the MBA lineup is way overdue, and there would be no benefit of keeping the old lineup. When the rMBP came out, the cMBP had different ports and the optical drive. The old MBA will most likely not provide anything the rMBA doesn't have. Again, just speculation, but it is unlikely. The 11" Air will probably have worse battery life anyways just because it will be smaller (if they do actually keep it in the lineup).
I agree. It would be redundant for Apple to have 3 different sized MBA models. It would make more sense for them to just have one MBA model, a 12 inch retina. This would save them money from having to produce two different sizes.
If this happens, what the hell will we do with no more "11 vs 13 threads??"
I agree. It would be redundant for Apple to have 3 different sized MBA models. It would make more sense for them to just have one MBA model, a 12 inch retina. This would save them money from having to produce two different sizes.
If this happens, what the hell will we do with no more "11 vs 13 threads??"
Hahaha, I would probably have to move all my long, useless posts to the 4GB RAM vs 8GB RAM threads
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Hahaha, I would probably have to move all my long, useless posts to the 4GB RAM vs 8GB RAM threads
Now those are awesome too! We can never let those die!
If this happens, what the hell will we do with no more "11 vs 13 threads??"
I literally LOL'd.