2012 macbook pro retina battery life..

[alexwei]

Guys i think the battery life on my macbook pro is terrible...

I plug-in my macbook pro while using it 99% of the time since i don't really take it outside or do anything without a power source nearby.
Just now I was reading something on the couch and my macbook was not plugged in. The battery drained quickly down to 77% (about an hour after without being plugged-in) and when I clicked the battery icon, it shows that less than 2 hours battery life remaining.. so that means the battery would drain down all the way from 77% in 2 hours? That's crazy....

Is there anything I can do to fix it? Is it some kind of a system bug like I need to reset the SMC or stuff like that?

 

[kage207]

This is really vague. You should describe your usage.

Also you should check your battery health located in the System Report. You can do this by going to logo in the upper right hand corner, 'About This Mac', 'More Info' , 'System Report' and then to Power. If this is too hard just download Coconut Battery.

 

[alexwei]

This is really vague. You should describe your usage.

Also you should check your battery health located in the System Report. You can do this by going to logo in the upper right hand corner, 'About This Mac', 'More Info' , 'System Report' and then to Power. If this is too hard just download Coconut Battery.

Well I rarely use my macbook unplugged and I play a lot of games on it as well.
I checked my battery health and it shows that its 97% from iStat..

When I noticed that my battery can only last less than 2 hours with 77% of battery, I wasn't doing anything except using safari..

 

[SarcasticJoe]

The reality is that what exactly you're doing with Safari does actually matter quite a lot. If you're watching videos on sites that use Flash (like youtube) or Silverlight (Netflix) that will drain the battery pretty darn fast due to how badly built those plugins are. Even viewing sites with big Flash based ads will drain the battery pretty darn fast.

To use a car analogy that's easier to understand to someone who's tech illiterate: The same way you can have a big difference in fuel consumption if you do 50mph in 3rd or 5th gear you can have a big difference in battery life depending on what you're doing in your web browser.

 

[kage207]

Well I rarely use my macbook unplugged and I play a lot of games on it as well.
I checked my battery health and it shows that its 97% from iStat..

When I noticed that my battery can only last less than 2 hours with 77% of battery, I wasn't doing anything except using safari..

As SarcasticJoe stated, the harsh reality, a lot of things may affect your performance in battery. If I leave Flash on and not blocked, it consumes a great deal of my battery which is why I always have Click2Flash on.

Lastly, what is your screen display brightness at? If it is at 100% then you're going to drain it really quick. The best is about ~9 bars or less, though I usually do 10.

By the sounds of it, you have your screen brightness all the way up.

 

[GGJstudios]

Well I rarely use my macbook unplugged and I play a lot of games on it as well.
I checked my battery health and it shows that its 97% from iStat..

When I noticed that my battery can only last less than 2 hours with 77% of battery, I wasn't doing anything except using safari..

There are many factors that impact your battery life. See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details, including tips on how to maximize your battery life.

​

The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ​

 

[Gav Mack]

Uninstall the flash plug-in, and silverlight too unless you really need it for say Netflix. Install Chrome and a 'open with chrome' extension for Safari when you need flash. I understand now that Chrome 37 onwards supports DRM in HTML 5.0 so Linux is now supported with Netflix, it may be the same for the Mac also so you may not need Silverlight even.