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2013 11" Battery Life Thread (real world)

Is it safe to say the i5 lasts roughly one hour longer than the i7 when doing 'average' tasks, meaning replying to emails, a few web browser tabs open, pages, nothing overly tasking on the CPU.

So far that's the conclusion I've made, I'm keeping my i5/8/512 because of the added battery runtime.
 
entatlrg said:
Is it safe to say the i5 lasts roughly one hour longer than the i7 when doing 'average' tasks, meaning replying to emails, a few web browser tabs open, pages, nothing overly tasking on the CPU
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No, I don't think so. I think the difference in battery when doing average tasks is a difference of minutes. The difference when doing CPU-taxing tasks is a difference in an hour.

Either way, enjoy your computer.
 
Final verdict is out

I7 is more hot :-( with the fans and i5 is not regardless of CPU intensive tasks (source of this info is the rants on this forum)
 
johnjey said:
Final verdict is out

I7 is more hot :-( with the fans and i5 is not regardless of CPU intensive tasks (source of this info is the rants on this forum)
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The only heat on my i7 machine (after hours of writing and browsing) is heat from my body. Love this thing.
 
Yes it is indeed a BIG CERTIFIED SHAME on all these companies who simply decided to ignore a very important comparison between Haswell i5 & i7 chips

If HeaT & fan aren't an issue - then die hard apple fans like us may eat a burger less per day & will eventually spend the extra 140$ to get the i7 huh !
 
Update on the i5/4/256 10:41 hrs on a charge and 2:36 hrs left as I went on battery last Friday.

yvsT2qV.png
 
erstylin said:
I will try that, although it says chrome is using significant power, it rarely exceed 15-20% on the activity monitor. Chrome is a superior browser, but I'll make the switch to safari and see if it improves battery. :confused:
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Chrome w/flash absolutely destroys battery life. This was the experience I have gotten on my lenovo and air. When browsing with safari I rarely go above 10% and typically with a 5% load or so...

The other thing i realized is having parallels run in background is an absolute battery crusher too. I now sleep my VM when I don't need to use it. With the SSD, the VMS go from sleep to start in seconds. Absolutely amazing.
 
Got my i7/8GB/256GB today. :D I'd like to monitor my battery stats - can anyone point me to a good app for this?
 
chrome

Although I agree with you that Chrome destroys battery, I am still returning my MBA for a new one since even with safari I can't get more than 7 hours of battery (with chrome maybe 5) and that's with only one or two tabs open. I see ppl with estimated time remaining of 12+ hrs yet mine rarely starts above 7 hours (sometimes 9 hours but quickly drain)



prophetx2 said:
Chrome w/flash absolutely destroys battery life. This was the experience I have gotten on my lenovo and air. When browsing with safari I rarely go above 10% and typically with a 5% load or so...

The other thing i realized is having parallels run in background is an absolute battery crusher too. I now sleep my VM when I don't need to use it. With the SSD, the VMS go from sleep to start in seconds. Absolutely amazing.
Click to expand...
 
erstylin said:
Although I agree with you that Chrome destroys battery, I am still returning my MBA for a new one since even with safari I can't get more than 7 hours of battery (with chrome maybe 5) and that's with only one or two tabs open. I see ppl with estimated time remaining of 12+ hrs yet mine rarely starts above 7 hours (sometimes 9 hours but quickly drain)
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Sounds shameful - Return & get an i5/8GB/512
 
The i7 doesn't run much faster by default than the i5, but it can turbo a higher clock speed than the Core i5.
If you're running a high CPU workload that never lets up in a continuous loop, the i7 is going to die quicker than the i5. Active power is greater at higher frequencies (assuming everything else remains the same) and with no chance to get to sleep the i7 will eat through the battery faster than the i5.

Where the i7 stands a chance however is in workloads where you aren't running the CPU at full tilt all of the time. The i7 needs tiny, tiny, tiny fractions of a second of idle time to throttle down and go to sleep. It's in these sleep states that it'll draw very little power and avoid being a major consumer of the battery. From the CPU's perspective, it wants to finish its work as quickly as possible so it can get back into its really low power idle states.

For workloads with balanced periods of load and idle time, the i7 should be able to at least equal the battery life of the i5. Short bursts of instructions can execute up to 25% faster on the i7, allowing it to go back to sleep that much quicker. Any energy expended from running at higher clock could be saved by spending more time at idle.

The other advantage is the larger cache. A larger cache means a higher likelihood of finding data in that cache, which saves trips to main memory. Anytime you go off-chip for data the power penalty is tremendous. You have to fire up a powerful memory interface, drive requests back and forth over a high speed bus and actually pull the data from DRAM. The entire process is far more power intensive than just grabbing data from the CPU's on-die cache.

Personally, I'll be going for the i7/8/256 varient of the MBA11". Battery life varies depending on how the CPU is used. Asking others how the battery life fares for them will not give any indication of what you will receive yourself. The i7, although using more power, should, in theory, finish the task quicker, and hence go back into its low power idle state quicker then the i5, thus saving power. The battery life for both models should, in theory, be more or less equal unless you throttle the i7 at its high clock speed for long periods of time.
 
Ifti said:
The i7 doesn't run much faster by default than the i5, but it can turbo a higher clock speed than the Core i5.
If you're running a high CPU workload that never lets up in a continuous loop, the i7 is going to die quicker than the i5. Active power is greater at higher frequencies (assuming everything else remains the same) and with no chance to get to sleep the i7 will eat through the battery faster than the i5.

Where the i7 stands a chance however is in workloads where you aren't running the CPU at full tilt all of the time. The i7 needs tiny, tiny, tiny fractions of a second of idle time to throttle down and go to sleep. It's in these sleep states that it'll draw very little power and avoid being a major consumer of the battery. From the CPU's perspective, it wants to finish its work as quickly as possible so it can get back into its really low power idle states.

For workloads with balanced periods of load and idle time, the i7 should be able to at least equal the battery life of the i5. Short bursts of instructions can execute up to 25% faster on the i7, allowing it to go back to sleep that much quicker. Any energy expended from running at higher clock could be saved by spending more time at idle.

The other advantage is the larger cache. A larger cache means a higher likelihood of finding data in that cache, which saves trips to main memory. Anytime you go off-chip for data the power penalty is tremendous. You have to fire up a powerful memory interface, drive requests back and forth over a high speed bus and actually pull the data from DRAM. The entire process is far more power intensive than just grabbing data from the CPU's on-die cache.

Personally, I'll be going for the i7/8/256 varient of the MBA11". Battery life varies depending on how the CPU is used. Asking others how the battery life fares for them will not give any indication of what you will receive yourself. The i7, although using more power, should, in theory, finish the task quicker, and hence go back into its low power idle state quicker then the i5, thus saving power. The battery life for both models should, in theory, be more or less equal unless you throttle the i7 at its high clock speed for long periods of time.
Click to expand...

This seems very logical & good argument - sadly some people here compared I-7 to big engine cars & used pretty much basic layman thinking without thinking about L3 cache - I am with you on this- however I fell pray to those rants earlier & got the i5 ....

But L3 cache was on my mind too....!
 
johnjey said:
This seems very logical & good argument - sadly some people here compared I-7 to big engine cars & used pretty much basic layman thinking without thinking about L3 cache - I am with you on this- however I fell pray to those rants earlier & got the i5 ....

But L3 cache was on my mind too....!
Click to expand...

I've been going back and forward between the i5 and i7 to be honest. Still havent purchased as Im waiting (and hoping) on a BTS promo starting very soon! Nevertheless, the more I think about it, the more I sway towards the i7. I'm quite sure battery life will be on par with the i5 during general light use, but I know I have the extra power there when I need it for more intensive tasks, such as rendering etc. Nobody expects awesome battery life when performing rendering tasks, for instance.

Looking at the tests between the 2013 13" i5 and i7 models, when the CPU is throttled, there seems to be an hour or two difference in battery life, which for some is substantial enough to make a difference. However, when performing a light task, such as watching movies via iTunes, both the i5 and i7 obtained very similar battery life - I think it was around an 8 mins difference, which is too little of a difference to even consider IMO.
I'll see if I can find the article again for a source ;)

If there is such a difference with the 13", I dont see why the 11" would be any different. It all comes down to your own personal usage. People can come here and inform me of their battery life all they want, it makes no difference since there are far too many variables to consider - brightness, wifi, task being undertaken, background processes, and the list goes on. Everyone's variables are different and each variable has an impact upon battery usage. Unless someone has both the i5 and i7 models side by side, with the exact same clone on each machine, performing the exact same task, etc, the results are too unreliable for me to consider.

Just my personal opinion ;)
 
Ifti said:
I've been going back and forward between the i5 and i7 to be honest. Still havent purchased as Im waiting (and hoping) on a BTS promo starting very soon! Nevertheless, the more I think about it, the more I sway towards the i7. I'm quite sure battery life will be on par with the i5 during general light use, but I know I have the extra power there when I need it for more intensive tasks, such as rendering etc. Nobody expects awesome battery life when performing rendering tasks, for instance.

Looking at the tests between the 2013 13" i5 and i7 models, when the CPU is throttled, there seems to be an hour or two difference in battery life, which for some is substantial enough to make a difference. However, when performing a light task, such as watching movies via iTunes, both the i5 and i7 obtained very similar battery life - I think it was around an 8 mins difference, which is too little of a difference to even consider IMO.
I'll see if I can find the article again for a source ;)

If there is such a difference with the 13", I dont see why the 11" would be any different. It all comes down to your own personal usage. People can come here and inform me of their battery life all they want, it makes no difference since there are far too many variables to consider - brightness, wifi, task being undertaken, background processes, and the list goes on. Everyone's variables are different. Unless someone has both the i5 and i7 models side by side, with the exact same clone on each machine, performing the exact same task, etc, the results are too unreliable for me to consider.

Just my personal opinion ;)
Click to expand...

I m like you in a way that I have spent an incredible time here and around in order to figure out if I should take the i5 or the i7. Now I think I lost my time and it's not really a big deal.

However I think the worse I could do now is to take something by hasard without waiting a real test that should come very soon.
 
gatika80 said:
I m like you in a way that I have spent an incredible time here and around in order to figure out if I should take the i5 or the i7. Now I think I lost my time and it's not really a big deal.

However I think the worse I could do now is to take something by hasard without waiting a real test that should come very soon.
Click to expand...

Agreed.
We've seen tests of the 13" variants now, so hopefully the 11" tests should come soon. Although in theory there should be very little difference to the 13" models......... or I could just be completely wrong of course! lol ;)
 
My 11" i7/8/256 just showed up, been playing with it, along side of my wifes i5/4/128

I am going to be doing a lot of side by side comparisons, to determine if i keep or return the i7 over the next 24 hours.

I will say i been using it now for about an hour, installing some programs, did a time machine back up, and then just some web browsing.

Here is what I've observed so far.

When doing the time machine back up, the bottom got "warm" not , hot not uncomfortable, just i could feel some heat. During this time I was also installing some programs etc.

After that finished, I took about a 10 min break let the battery charge up to 100% & let the i7 MBA sleep and cool down.

Since that time roughly 40 min ago, have just been reading forums, news sites, facebook, etc. "Normal browsing" on battery I show 12:06 battery life and the bottom of my laptop is cool, almost cold even. NO heat at all.

I will be doing more detailed tests later, right now i m just doing the "i am excited i just got it, playing thing."

I plan on doing side by side i5 vs i7 test for :

Movie play back
You Tube Play Back
Gaming Tests

I'll measure the battery, heat, and also the performance under each scenario.
 
Jazwire said:
My 11" i7/8/256 just showed up, been playing with it, along side of my wifes i5/4/128

I am going to be doing a lot of side by side comparisons, to determine if i keep or return the i7 over the next 24 hours.

I will say i been using it now for about an hour, installing some programs, did a time machine back up, and then just some web browsing.

Here is what I've observed so far.

When doing the time machine back up, the bottom got "warm" not , hot not uncomfortable, just i could feel some heat. During this time I was also installing some programs etc.

After that finished, I took about a 10 min break let the battery charge up to 100% & let the i7 MBA sleep and cool down.

Since that time roughly 40 min ago, have just been reading forums, news sites, facebook, etc. "Normal browsing" on battery I show 12:06 battery life and the bottom of my laptop is cool, almost cold even. NO heat at all.

I will be doing more detailed tests later, right now i m just doing the "i am excited i just got it, playing thing."

I plan on doing side by side i5 vs i7 test for :

Movie play back
You Tube Play Back
Gaming Tests

I'll measure the battery, heat, and also the performance under each scenario.
Click to expand...

Sounds positive so far ;)
 
I will receive my11" i5/8/512 ok Thursday and I will share my detailed results on battery usage and the real world usage :

Opening multiple MS apps like excel - etc will type later
 
Well after 4.5 hours of usage at 52% (i7/8/256)

Mostly browsing, watched half a dozen Youtube videos,used some Spotify, Skype,Email & installed a few programs including Office.

Bottom of the unit is cool to the touch.
 
Jazwire said:
Well after 4.5 hours of usage at 52% (i7/8/256)

Mostly browsing, watched half a dozen Youtube videos,used some Spotify, Skype,Email & installed a few programs including Office.

Bottom of the unit is cool to the touch.
Click to expand...

I've noticed similar results, I think. But I haven't been keeping track. All I know is the battery life is excellent.

I hope the battery/heat is this good on the new i7 I'll be getting next week. The one I've got now has a defective GPU, unfortunately, so I'm hoping the next one is perfect.
 
I just got my i5/8GB/256 and I'm getting 7-8hours of battery time shown on my menu bar.

This is after a full charge at 100% and a restart on the mac.

anyone has any idea about it?

John
 
avalony said:
I just got my i5/8GB/256 and I'm getting 7-8hours of battery time shown on my menu bar.

This is after a full charge at 100% and a restart on the mac.

anyone has any idea about it?

John
Click to expand...

Ignore the battery time estimation. It's bull honkey.
 
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