Curious to know what others are getting out of there battery. I can't seem to get 6 hours out of this thing. I do normal things on the laptop (mail, web browse, little trading, etc) nothing crazy to me. I've had it for about a week and I'm thinking its starting to settle in. Just curious, other than that seems to be a good overall machine.
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2020 MacBook Pro battery life
- Thread starter JohnCS84
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I am waiting on one and if it only lasts 6 hours, that would be extremely disappointing. Are you browsing on Chrome by any chance?
It's repeatedly the case that a new Mac laptop goes through indexing process. If this happens after few weeks of use, it would be a problem. But try to wait until the laptop settles with its process.
Is it the 2 or 4 TB version? Which browser do you use? In Activity Monitor is it showing anything with high sustained CPU usage? Could be many, many reasons for why you're getting low battery life.
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Indexing does not take a few weeks. It takes hours to a day, as long as its not sleeping the whole time.
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Indexing does not take a few weeks. It takes hours to a day, as long as its not sleeping the whole time.
People need to stop spreading this misinformation of indexing. I've seen it all the time on different forums in the past few years. Maybe it was true back then with weaker processors and hard drives. But when you have SSD's with the reads/writes that are available today alongside the efficiency/power of the CPU's, indexing should take less than a day.
I’ve had activity monitor up every day. Shows safari when I’m in safari. Photos when I’m in photos and mail as well. As far as apps using energy. Normal things. Things that I do every day. The model I have is the i5/16/512. I feel like it’s excessive drain compared to the other pros I have in the house. I love the keyboard and really want this to work out as the computer is great. I’ve had it for a week so I would think indexing is done.
That does seem like excessive battery usage. My battery runtime is somewhere in the 9+ our range.
If you are contemplating the 10.15.5 update, it might be worth downloading the combo updater and see if that improves things. If not, download the combo updater for the patch level you are running and see if that helps.
If you are contemplating the 10.15.5 update, it might be worth downloading the combo updater and see if that improves things. If not, download the combo updater for the patch level you are running and see if that helps.
I'm at 50% charge remaining @ 4 hours and 10 minutes...
100% @9:44 (unplugged power supply)… screen brightness is ~50%
95% @10:23
90% @ 10:59
85% @ 11:31
80% @ 12:03 (started watching DockerCon 2020 streaming event)
75% @ 12:31
70% @ 12:52
65% @1:12
60% @1:25
55% @1:42
Fan 1 1245 RPM, Fan 2 1355 RPM CPU 56.86 C / GPU 57.00 C
50% @1:54
I have battery life issues too but then figured out I was watching youtube vids at 4k res using chrome which is a waste of bandwidth and battery life. Battery life drastically improved when using Safari when on battery.
I still use Chrome while plugged in.
I still use Chrome while plugged in.
Please accept the fact. This MBP is only 5-6 hours. Check all forum you can online if you want. Don’t listen to other people said they have 9-10hours they got. It’s only 10% of them, I don’t know they are liar or they try to make a statement. Return it or you go get a external battery will fix this. Good luck.
The 9- and 10-hour battery life claims depend on you turning the brightness waaaaay down. With a normal screen brightness (say, 40-50% — this thing is awfully bright at its max setting), it wouldn't be unusual to see 5-6 hours running time.
Also, Turbo Boost is a battery killer. Download Turbo Boost Switcher or Turbo Boost Switcher Pro and disable turbo boost, then give it another try. When I am using Turbo Boost Switcher Pro I routinely get 8- or 9-hour battery life.
Your CPU power draw is critical. If using the laptop to encode something in Handbrake, fro example, the battery will die inside of 50 minutes.
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I agree. With my MBP 13" 2019 (1.4GHz base model) I have gotten constantly only about that. It is not indexing issue, it is what it is. For example I just got 4 hours and 22 minutes of use with battery from 100% to 32,4%. My use during that was: Safari with 2-3 tabs open with web sites like Macrumors, occasionally MacOS mail that I close completely after use and I was playing music to my Airpods. Nothing else running background. I was using WiFi at home with strong signal level and my display brightness was max MINUS 6 clicks (lower than what Apple mentioned in their 10 hour test procedure for this model, their claim is 12 clicks from bottom, so mine was 10 clicks from bottom (=the same as max -6 clicks)) and keyboard backlight turned low and only on when I touch it. So that cannot be very demanding use, can it?
Run times on battery have been steadily like this for a long time.
Battery health is over 100% and 56 charge cycles (I've been very careful with the battery and babied it), so nothing should be wrong with it.
Where did you get that 40-50% thing, where do they say so?
I'm reading Apple web site for MBP 13" 2020 model and it says 10 hours is measured with screen brightness at 75% or 12 clicks from bottom. See for yourself here (browse page all the way down and look for small print on section 2.), they define very clearly test procedure and no mentions about using turbo boost switcher or anything like that to disable turbo boost.
https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-13/specs/
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Only had one day of usage so far but initial impressions are that the device lasts around 6-7 hours on battery. Certainly when using it to run a dozen or so Google Chrome web tabs and online Gsuite/Office 365 stuff.
I imagine if I installed turbo boost switcher, used Safari rather than Chrome and turned the brightness down a notch or two I could maybe get another hour or so. Apple's claim (along with most other Manufacturers) seems very optimistic though. I guess 7 hours isn't too bad though it's no better, maybe slightly worse infact, than my 4 year old Macbook 12". I'd have hoped with a larger battery, newer processor and 4-5 years of technological advances we'd see improvements rather than a drop.
At least it can be easily charged over USB-C with an off the shelf battery pack if you need longer when on the move.
I imagine if I installed turbo boost switcher, used Safari rather than Chrome and turned the brightness down a notch or two I could maybe get another hour or so. Apple's claim (along with most other Manufacturers) seems very optimistic though. I guess 7 hours isn't too bad though it's no better, maybe slightly worse infact, than my 4 year old Macbook 12". I'd have hoped with a larger battery, newer processor and 4-5 years of technological advances we'd see improvements rather than a drop.
At least it can be easily charged over USB-C with an off the shelf battery pack if you need longer when on the move.
Good luck with that. Not sure but if you read the battery run time statement in the link I posted they mention both 1.4GHz (which is 8th gen) and "preproduction 2.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i5-based" (which I suppose is referring to 10th gen???) there should not be difference.My MBP 13 10th gen i5 will arrive on Monday- what would be interesting to know is, if the battery life differs significantly between the 8th gen and the 10th gen MBP 13 ...
I can get up to 11 hours if I just browse with Safari. (I was trying to figure out how Apple got their 10 hour battery life claim)
However when I am doing real work, I can get 7 hours which is good enough for me.
Now if you use the MBP with maximum brightness, you will see worse results ofcourse.
That 11 hours is amazing in case you were actually using the machine all the time and it was not sleeping half of the time (or it was not plugged to charger
)?Max brightness sure would drop run time but still Apple claims they test 10 hours at 75% brightness which is much brighter than what I usually use mine… Anyway, I guess my use is such demanding because I often use AirPods with my MBP. 🤫
I get 8-10 hours with my 2020 MBP 13" with 10th gen i5 and light usage (mail, safari, preview, notes, calendar). I am VERY happy with this. It feels like I am able to take my MacBook somewhere again without having to worry about an empty battery after 2 hours. My previous MBP 15" 2018 lost 10% percent of battery in 15-20 minutes, it was totally annoying. My 2020 MPB's battery draining feels more like using my iPad. The 2018 MBP felt like using a 10 years old laptop that needs a new battery.
That 11 hours is amazing in case you were actually using the machine all the time and it was not sleeping half of the time (or it was not plugged to charger
Max brightness sure would drop run time but still Apple claims they test 10 hours at 75% brightness which is much brighter than what I usually use mine… Anyway, I guess my use is such demanding because I often use AirPods with my MBP. 🤫
Yes, but only with browsing very light websites such as this one. My screen brightness was definitely lower than 75% (I believe it was around 40 - 50% if I remember correctly). But I don't consider this as the benchmark for battery life as I doubt anyone would use their MBP like this. I just simply wanted to see what is the maximum battery life I can get with the lightest task possible.
I'd say around 6 to 7 hours is more realistic if you actually use this laptop.