22 hours of battery life - M3 all models?

[dizmonk]

Here's one thing I'm very confused about. Apple is claiming all M3 models (not the Pro/Max) are capable of getting up to 22 hours of battery life. Before everyone flames me... I know Apple exaggerates that figure based on the AppleTV app... but I still have questions. Here's what's unclear to me...

1) How did they gain 4 hours of alleged battery life from the 14" m2 to the 14" m3?
2) How is the 14" getting the same alleged battery life as the 16" when the 16 has a bigger battery?

I don't get it. And please don't tell me Apple fudges the numbers - I know that. But according to their numbers, the m3 has made a significant increase in battery life. Someone help me understand. Thanks.

 

[Beau10]

The more important figure is wireless web, and that is 15 hours for the 16", 12 for the 14". Both figures are the same as the M2 Pro and each one hour more than the M1 Pro. So for real world use don't expect much improvement.

As far as 'movie watching off the grid mode', the 14" is likely getting the same as the 16" due to screen size as that's going to be the biggest consumer of power in this state.

 

[TinyMito]

22 hours is the best case scenario test. Real world is different, as always, average people get up to 7-10 hours. 5-7 hours after 2 years.

 

[JPack]

22 hours is based solely on the newly added AV1 codec decoder in M3. That’s why the 22 hour test result is for Apple TV playback. It’s an ideal situation. Without this decoder, the power consumption is the same.

M2 and M3 have the same 15 hour web surfing battery life.

 

[Devyn89]

It’s also from the base model existing now from my understanding. Last time there was M2 Pro and M2 Max but no base M2 model in this design. This time they have released an entry level model to replace the touchbar. M3 draws less power than M3 Pro and M3 Max becuase it‘s primary goal is power efficiency vs Pro and Max chips with performance being a larger goal.

 

[Beau10]

It’s also from the base model existing now from my understanding.

That's a good point - I'm seeing the 14" M3 Pro has 18 hours for this spec. 22 hrs. is for the regular 14" M3.

 

[Alexander96]

Could someone explain to me why the M3 base modell has 22 hours and the M3 pro only 18 hours? Ofc. the M3 pro has a little higher power consumption but only if I need this power I thought? So how does it come the base modell has 4 hours more on the paper?

 

[JPack]

Could someone explain to me why the M3 base modell has 22 hours and the M3 pro only 18 hours? Ofc. the M3 pro has a little higher power consumption but only if I need this power I thought? So how does it come the base modell has 4 hours more on the paper?

Bigger chip means more power. In theory, only parts of the chip used with light up, but in reality, it doesn't work like that. All cores will light up when you browse the web, complete the task, then power down. In addition, there are 3 DRAM chips on M3 Pro compared to 2 chips on base M3.