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15" battery life abysmal?

M

macbook123

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Feb 11, 2006
1,869
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Got mine this week. I'm very confused by the battery life. I literally have less than 10 browser windows open, nothing else. Just doing gentle browsing without any video playback it starts up telling me 4:00 remaining right after I take it of the charger. Is 4 hours with light browsing acceptable? Seems nuts to me.

Has anybody else tried their 15" battery life?
 
SMC reset seemed to bring mine up to ~10 hours from 6.5-7 hours initially. Not projected, but actual use. There are two other threads on this issue already...
 
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cmaier said:
You claimed it made no difference long before you claimed to have actually tried it. In any event, numerous people have posted that they actually increased their real runtime by 50-100%.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't know unless I tried it. I see most mimicking the fact it didn't improve battery. I wish it did, but it's not. Maybe I'll try it again, but real world I'm getting less than 7.
 
It is GREAT when I am not doing anything. But actually using it for something it is pretty bad.

I could get 10hrs out of it if I kept a very simple web page open in Safari with the display very dim and no keyboard backlight. Actually *USING* the machine gets only 4-6 hours on even pretty light tasks.

Apple continues to demonstrate their mastery of the reality distortion field.
 
For what its worth, heres a screen shot of me running 3 browsers tabs in safari, Xcode, and the iPhone simulator, bright quoted 7hrs.

15" 2.9Ghz i7, Radeon pro 460
 

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    Screen Shot 2016-11-19 at 4.58.02 PM.png
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battery life under load VS battery life at rest.
Is it possible the touch bar has got to do something with the random battery life?
 
BasicGreatGuy said:
The number you see is merely an estimate by Sierra . It is not a static number. It does not reflect what you will actually end up with.
Click to expand...
It actually seemed lower than what was happening in real life. I went all day without charging and I had iTerm, Postman, Mongodb, RoboMongo, Atom Safari & Chrome w/multiple tabs open.
 
AdonisSMU said:
It actually seemed lower than what was happening in real life. I went all day without charging and I had iTerm, Postman, Mongodb, RoboMongo, Atom Safari & Chrome w/multiple tabs open.
Click to expand...

There is a contingent of people on here so eager that there be a battery life problem, that each time someone posts about how they are now getting good life (after SMC reset) they feel the need to tell us that only the displayed estimated time has changed. Even though person after person reports that the actual lifetime has improved.
 
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cmaier said:
There is a contingent of people on here so eager that there be a battery life problem, that each time someone posts about how they are now getting good life (after SMC reset) they feel the need to tell us that only the displayed estimated time has changed. Even though person after person reports that the actual lifetime has improved.
Click to expand...
I'm just going to monitor the situation and if it appears there is a legitimate problem I will take the proper measures to ensure it is rectified.
 
AdonisSMU said:
It actually seemed lower than what was happening in real life. I went all day without charging and I had iTerm, Postman, Mongodb, RoboMongo, Atom Safari & Chrome w/multiple tabs open.
Click to expand...
You may have noticed a increase in battery life. I don't know. I wasn't saying yea or nay to the SMC reset. I was merely pointing out that the Seirra battery estimate that so many have been glued to is just that, an inaccurate estimate that isn't static will not reflect actual end usage.

I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't some kind of random software issue related to the implementation of the Touch Bar. Who knows.

Once I get my Mac set up and allow it to finish indexing etc., I may let it do a battery cycle and see what happens.

If people quickly return the touch bar instead of contacting Apple and reporting their case usage during the grace period, how is Apple to know there is as potential problem of some kind? Being upset at Apple for a problem that isn't getting reported is rather illogical to me.

I understand the need or expectation of many for a long battery discharge. I am not saying that there isn't a problem. I am not qualified to make any state on that matter. At least take the time to report problems to the right peopled at Apple, instead of leaving all the dismay and anger on the forum. People shouldn't expect Apple to constantly read this forum. Be proactive and see what happens.
 
I think people put too much stock in the battery estimator, whether it's on MacOS or Windows. The only way to really test is to just look at the clock, disconnect your power and go use the laptop. Get the battery down to 10% or so, whenever it actually starts warning you to plug it in, and do the math. That's as "real world" as you'll get. Don't set the screen brightness at 20% and do one thing for a few minutes then look at the estimator. Conversely, don't set the screen brightness at 100% with Chrome open and expect to get 10hrs :).

Give it a few full real tests/cycles, at the actual brightness you want it at, doing what you actually do....then see what it really is.

It's like calculating your MPG in a car, never believe the dash computer, you gotta fill the tank, drive it like you normally would, fill the tank and calculate the mileage.
 
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RoskO said:
I think people put too much stock in the battery estimator, whether it's on MacOS or Windows. The only way to really test is to just look at the clock, disconnect your power and go use the laptop. Get the battery down to 10% or so, whenever it actually starts warning you to plug it in, and do the math. That's as "real world" as you'll get. Don't set the screen brightness at 20% and do one thing for a few minutes then look at the estimator. Conversely, don't set the screen brightness at 100% with Chrome open and expect to get 10hrs :).

Give it a few full real tests/cycles, at the actual brightness you want it at, doing what you actually do....then see what it really is.

It's like calculating your MPG in a car, never believe the dash computer, you gotta fill the tank, drive it like you normally would, fill the tank and calculate the mileage.
Click to expand...

Is this thread really about the estimator? I'm talking real world usage only.
 
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