Retina MBP battery life

[Tritons]

So drvelocity posted his review of Retina MBP and noted that "Just using video chat on Ichat with 80% brightness will net 2 hours maximum."
Anyone that already got RMBP can you post how long battery last doing usual web browsing, some flash videos, etc.?

 

[fizzwinkus]

live video transcoding, heavy wifi usage, high brightness are all battery intensive things.
still, 2 hours seems low. (in my uninformed opinion)

flash video is also intensive.

 

[DArsenault]

While I haven't done any official tests I can tell you that there is no way 2 hours off a full charge is accurate. I was playing diablo 3 with a wireless USB mouse, game on full resolution and full brightness for 2-3 hours and still had over 70% battery life.

As far as general web browsing and comp use I haven't really used it for more than 2-3 hours unplugged but using it for that amount of time left me with about 80% battery life.
I think engadgets review said they got almost 9 1/2 hours of battery life and I feel like that's closer to what I've been getting.

 

[trsblader]

I was in class for 2 hours with powerpoint open and a few tabs in chrome open from 10:30-12:15 and I'm at 83% still and that is estimated 7+ hours still.

Last week I went from 10:30-1:15, and from 2:30-5:15 with at least 20 tabs and Netbeans open the entire time, and still had over 50% left.

Battery life (for me) has been incredible. I bought on launch day and still only have 6 charges on the battery (including the 2 that it came with from Apple testing).

 

[satchow]

Who is drvelocity and why does he call it "Ichat".

Anyways I have a MacBook Pro with Retina Display and I used it for an hour doing normal things like Chrome and Twitter and it only got down to about 90%.

 

[Tritons]

Oh, thank you guys for your replies. In that case I'm definitely getting Retina MBP just have to wait 3-4 weeks till they get in Latvia.

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Who is drvelocity and why does he call it "Ichat".

Anyways I have a MacBook Pro with Retina Display and I used it for an hour doing normal things like Chrome and Twitter and it only got down to about 90%.

Guy who wrote a review here. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1391454/

 

[trsblader]

Just reading his post and wanting to clarify my results. I can't remember ever using a screen at 80% brightness. My iMac and retina both have auto brightness turned on and the slider is just about 1/4 the way up. On top of that if I hit the brightness button on my iMac all the white dots are gone, It's as low as it goes. My retina is on 1 white dot. My eye sight is very good and I don't sit far away or at weird angles.

However the brightness is an issue with every device, not just the retina

 

[rmcnelly]

Please include which model rMBP you have. I just ordered a 2.6/512/16 model (backordered from MacMall).

 

[trsblader]

I have the very base model. So that's 2.3/256/8

 

[samsonoe]

Oh, thank you guys for your replies. In that case I'm definitely getting Retina MBP just have to wait 3-4 weeks till they get in Latvia.

This is completely unrelated, but someone once told me that the most beautiful women in the world are in Latvia. Riga, to be precise. Any truth to that?

Anyways, I would love to put in my 2 cents regarding the battery life, but I'm still waiting 3-4 weeks for mine :/

 

[Tritons]

This is completely unrelated, but someone once told me that the most beautiful women in the world are in Latvia. Riga, to be precise. Any truth to that?

Anyways, I would love to put in my 2 cents regarding the battery life, but I'm still waiting 3-4 weeks for mine :/

It looks like we will get our macs in about the same time.

About girls in Latvia, yeah I guess you could say that since a lot of Latvian girls are very beautiful unfortunately there are a lot of Russian girls, but that's another topic.

 

[JefferyShin]

Woah, okay I have a completely different experience with the rMBP.

At 100% battery, with just regular applications running (iTunes, Mail, Chrome), the estimate shows about 2:30-3:00 hours.

I turn down the brightness to about 50%, wait a few minutes, then check the battery estimate again and it shows about 3:30-4:00 hours.

Is my Mac faulty? I've got the 2.3/16/256 rMBP.

 

[markp99]

I turn down the brightness to about 50%, wait a few minutes, then check the battery estimate again and it shows about 3:30-4:00 hours.

Is my Mac faulty? I've got the 2.3/16/256 rMBP.

Exactly what I see.

50% brightness
Simple browsing & email
No video
No VM
Sleep Mode - overnight and when not in use

3:30 to 4:30 hrs - not bad, but no where near 6:00 to 7:00 hrs!

 

[lcseds]

I know on my 2010 MBP the Bluetooth sucks a lot of battery life. Try turning Bluetooth off if you have it on and see what the change is to the estimated time remaining. I think Bluetooth is on as default.

 

[kisbys]

Exactly what I see.

50% brightness
Simple browsing & email
No video
No VM
Sleep Mode - overnight and when not in use

3:30 to 4:30 hrs - not bad, but no where near 6:00 to 7:00 hrs!

I quite happily saw 5-6 hours out of it at work the other day it will happily see 4:30-5:30... so loving it thats with messages sparrow tweetbot safari iTunes dropbox bettersnap etc

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ps I am fairly certain a lot of this comes from the discrete graphics card which apple really need to work out a fix for... I've noticed so many times that its on for stupid stuff like skype will force the card on... (I hardly think necessary) I know its poor programming by Skype et al but also probably my biggest complain of apple. They shouldn't rely on the integrity of their 3rd party developers they should have an independent algorithm that access's if the program needs it... I can understand iPhoto at full resolution... but Skype!!!!