13" Macbook Pro (late 2016 - with out TB) - battery life

[Michael Kristensen]

Hi everyone

Checking in from Denmark.

I just wanted to hear, how you all experience your battery life on your MBP late 2016 with out TB.

The specifications on my MBP are as follows:
2,4ghz i7
16gb ram
1tb ssd

I use my MBP as my primary working computer, traveling to work on train, and working in a clinic all day. In this scenario my MBP lasts a whole day from 7-18 with approximately 70% battery life left, when I get back home.
The last past weeks I've been preparing for exams and because of that really using my MBP heavily watching videos, taking notes, answering occasional emails and looking up random medical terms in safari. While doing this I'm VERY DISAPOINTED by the fact, that I've only managed to get between 5-5,5 hours out of my MBP?

I'm using the following setup on my MBP:

WIFI on
Sound on 50%
Brightness 50%
Using headphones instead of speakers.

Apps open are:
- VLC (200% sound enhancement, always) --> VLC window only being half the screen width, and Pages on the other half.
- Safari (3 tabs)
- Mail
- Pages (for notes)
- Messages (app for SMS/MMS/imessage).

I'm really looking forward to hearing you experiences?

All the best and greetings from Denmark!

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Do more, get lower battery life, that's all mobile devices. What did you expect a battery that doesn't drain faster when used more??

 

[Michael Kristensen]

Do more, get lower battery life, that's all mobile devices. What did you expect a battery that doesn't drain faster when used more??

Thank you for you useful feedback - could you elaborate in stead of just stating the obvious?

Of course the battery life will take a dive... but from the acclaimed 10-11hours for the NTB version to between 5-5,5 hours? And taken in to consideration, that I'm primarily using VLC and just taking notes in Pages. The other app's are just "idling"... AND that I'm using headphones and only have the screen brightness and volume on 50%? I think this is horrible... I would expect maybe 7-8hours?

Anyone else want to share their experiences?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Pangalactic]

I'd advice you to go into Activity Monitor, go to Energy, sort by average Energy Impact and find out the culprits

As for my personal experience - I can around 8/10 hours in relative tryhard mode (50% brightness, not a lot of apps opened, etc), my average usage gives me around 6-7 hours (and that is 70-80% brightness, lots of chrome tabs, facebook & whatsapp messengers, lynda.com, word, telegram, slack, excel, preview, itunes and a couple of other apps open at the same time).

Preliminary advice: you can invest in a power bank with a usb C output and charge your Mac on the go.

 

[Michael Kristensen]

I'd advice you to go into Activity Monitor, go to Energy, sort by average Energy Impact and find out the culprits

As for my personal experience - I can around 8/10 hours in relative tryhard mode (50% brightness, not a lot of apps opened, etc), my average usage gives me around 6-7 hours (and that is 70-80% brightness, lots of chrome tabs, facebook & whatsapp messengers, lynda.com, word, telegram, slack, excel, preview, itunes and a couple of other apps open at the same time).

Preliminary advice: you can invest in a power bank with a usb C output and charge your Mac on the go.

Thank you Pangalactic! This was very insightful!

I imagine that you're a heavy user also - but more in regards to web browsing (and using Chrome, which is claimed to be very battery draining - am I right?). And getting 6-7 hours on 70-80% brightness.

I need a little more info to take thinks into consideration:
- What's your specs?
- Is it also a NTB version?
- Have you tried watching movies constantly like me?
- Do you hear music during working on you laptop?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Pangalactic]

Thank you Pangalactic! This was very insightful!

I imagine that you're a heavy user also - but more in regards to web browsing (and using Chrome, which is claimed to be very battery draining - am I right?). And getting 6-7 hours on 70-80% brightness.

I need a little more info to take thinks into consideration:
- What's your specs?
- Is it also a NTB version?
- Have you tried watching movies constantly like me?
- Do you hear music during working on you laptop?

Thanks in advance!

No worries mate I have a 2016 nTB version with 8GB of RAM, intel core i5, Intel Iris 540 and a 512 GB SSD - so pretty much the base model, save the SSD. Obviously it's less powerful, so I guess maybe this has some battery impact.

To be honest I don't watch movies quite often with VLC - I usually watch quite a lot of stuff on youtube or through tutorial apps (e.g. Lynda.com) or quicktime videos, and I listen to music occasionally for me the number 1 energy consumer is Chrome, which is miles away from all the other Apps.