2017 13 nTB MBP - real world battery life?

[worlez]

I recently exchanged a 2017 rMB for a 2017 13 nTB MBP, but finding that the battery life seems significantly shorter. It’s being used for the same tasks (general media consumption, browsing, business admin, light photo editing for social media).

With the rMB I’d charge every other day or less. I’ve not had the MBP long enough to compare, but running a stopwatch that I start/stop every time I sit and use it is giving me 2.5hrs usage and 30% battery remaining. From eveything I’d read I was honestly expecting it to last at least as log as the rMB.

Does anybody have any real world user experience of the day to day battery life on the nonTB MBP?

Cheers

Al

PS - I exchanged the machines because whilst loving the rMB, I thought I’d prefer a slightly larger screen (I do) and would be willing to comrpromise on portability. However, the convenience of a true all day battery is really important to me, so if the nonTB MBP can’t offer this I’m going to have to rethink.

 

[Jolanth_Szatmary]

Battery lasts all day on my 2017 nTB13 with the lightweight tasks you mentioned. Battery drains fast when doing CPU-heavy stuff like video editing. Turning the screen brightness all the way up also takes its toll.

Try to use activity monitor (in utilities) to see if an application is driving the CPU up. If you have a large photo library, photo analysis is often the culprit. CPU usage goes down once the library is fully analysed. Good luck!

 

[Howard2k]

You can also use the Energy tab in Activity Monitor to see which programs are using the most energy. The numbers are internally relative, they can't be correlated to specific power consumption metrics, but larger numbers are bad, smaller numbers are good. Spend a little time looking at it and you'll get to grips with what "normal" looks like.

 

[macdudesir]

I have the TB MBP which technically should be worse I think...I get through all day with mine on lightweight tasks (I use it in class and out of class for notes, homework, etc...)...I could probably get through 2 days with these tasks but it's so easy to pop it on the charger at night before I go to bed that I just do that and not worry about it...Right now, I am at 93% and activity monitor says time on battery is 1 hour....time remaining is about 9 hours...

The biggest thing that will kill these during lightweight tasks is the brightness...this 500 nit display is amazingly bright, but to do so, it requires a ton of power...anything over about 75% is going to tank your battery life.

 

[Painter2002]

I have a 2017 MBP wTB, and I can easily get a full 8 hours of use, with mixed use of safari, messages, and a couple small applications. And I keep brightness at about 75%.

I would look at the Activity Monitor to see whats consuming your battery juice. if you aren't doing anything power consumptive (like using PS, video editing or Chrome browser), you should be getting a full 8 hours at least of battery life.

If you still are having issues, I would take it to Apple to have them look at it. Could be a bad battery, and they can take care of that.

 

[Wingzfan61]

2017 nTB MBP. I take it off the charger every morning at 7 am. Typical day is 6 hours, starting at 8am, on quickbooks, email, web browsing, and messaging (10-15 minute breaks here and there). Take a break for about an hour and back at it until I leave at 6:30. When I get home at 7pm Im usually at around 20% which gets me some web browsing off and on till about 10pm then back on the charger for the night. Typical actual usage is around 8 to 8.5 hours.

Im considering swapping this one out for a 2018 TB model for the quad core processor but taking a battery hit concerns me.

 

[Painter2002]

I have had mine on day, with Safari, email, messages and music (through bluetooth headphones) going since 8:30 AM today, and now (at 5:27) I am still at 41%. I did take a couple breaks (like two hours total) from being on my 2017 MacBook Pro, but that gives you an idea that these should have decent amount of battery life.