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15" battery life abysmal?
- Thread starter macbook123
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Are people actually running their batteries down? Or looking at the estimate? Because that estimate is only based on what you're doing right now, and even then, not a good indication for how long it'll run. Once you have the battery life go down to 0%, then post here. Otherwise, having posted, "Oh, I just got 14 hours estimated even though I'm doing absolutely nothing!" contributes 0%.
Yes. Many people have reported running down the battery and reported their workloads and runtimes.
I'm getting around 4 hours running Photo Mechanic, Lightroom and Safari at full brightness. Seems pretty short to me even considering I'm using semi-intensive apps (Lightroom mainly).
Try the reset and an OS reinstall? I've heard that works too.
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What makes you think Lightroom with full brightness wouldn't eat battery life?
Four hours at full brightness given the usage seems very good to me. If you thought you would get 6+ hours at full brightness, you thought wrong. Apple doesn't even test with full brightness when giving battery life estimates.
Is that not the reported time ? Cause my duration has been the same while I got silly numbers from the system initially stating I had as low as 5 hours on 100% battery... which after a few full recharges went into 9 hours .....no reset nothing.
And that is meaningless anyway as it's just An estimate , my actual has been roughly the same this week
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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.
Spot on. The estimator is kind meaningless .
I can baby the battery And be happy with the big number estimates .
Today I pushed both a 2015 and 2016 from 100% battery encoding the same video via handbrake, actual work flow. 45 minutes later (2016 finished first) the 2015 had 50% battery, the 2016 26% .
This tells me the 2015 has a superior battery, by some margin.
My actual battery life is ok. Other problems, but battery life hasn't been one of them (since SMC reset)
I listened to the latest episode of Accidental Tech Podcast where they mentioned this very issue. If you're doing practically nothing the 15 inch offers good battery life but with moderate use it apparently drops down to 2-5 hours. A shame.
