Apple's New MacBook Air Features Impressive Battery Life That Bests MacBook and MacBook Pro

[MacRumors]

Apple's newly announced MacBook Air with Retina display and upgraded 8th-generation Intel processors features the best battery life out of any of Apple's notebooks, MacBook Pro and MacBook included.

The new machine, which features a 50.3 watt-hour lithium polymer battery, offers up to 12 hours of battery life when web browsing, 13 hours when watching iTunes movie playback, and 30 days of standby time.

Comparatively, the MacBook Pro models offer up to 10 hours battery when browsing the web and 10 hours of iTunes movie playback, while the MacBook offers 10 hours of battery when browsing the web and 12 hours of iTunes movie playback.

The MacBook Air is going to provide two extra hours of battery life for web browsing compared to other models, and an hour to three hours more when watching movies. Details on Apple's battery testing procedures are below:

Testing conducted by Apple in October 2018 using preproduction 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5-based MacBook Air systems with 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD. The wireless web test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing 25 popular websites with display brightness set to 12 clicks from bottom or 75%. The iTunes movie playback test measures battery life by playing back HD 1080p content with display brightness set to 12 clicks from bottom or 75%. The standby test measures battery life by allowing a system, connected to a wireless network and signed in to an iCloud account, to enter standby mode with Safari and Mail applications launched and all system settings left at default. Battery life varies by use and configuration.

The MacBook Air is equipped with two USB-C ports and charges over USB-C. It ships with a 30W power adapter, much like the 12-inch MacBook.

You can order the new MacBook Air today, and prices start at $1,199. The first orders will arrive next Wednesday, November 7.

Article Link: Apple's New MacBook Air Features Impressive Battery Life That Bests MacBook and MacBook Pro

 

[ghostface147]

Well I would hope it would.

 

[dbf7]

I’d suggest a correction... it has two Thunderbolt 3 ports, not just USB-C, as this may confuse people.

 

[giggles]

Still can’t tell if it’s fanless like the 12” or not.

 

[Pelea]

And features a downgraded core y processor to insure minimal performance across all tasks!

 

[TrulsZK]

Apple's New MacBook Air Features Impressive Battery Life That Bests MacBook and MacBook Pro

You mean Apple's New MacBook Air Features Impressive Battery Life That Beats MacBook and MacBook Pro?

 

[frou]

You mean Apple's New MacBook Air Features Impressive Battery Life That Beats MacBook and MacBook Pro?

Nope - get out your dictionary

 

[oneMadRssn]

Still can’t tell if it’s fanless like the 12” or not.

Probably it isn't. This is likely a 15W CPU, which will require a bit of active cooling. The fanless 12"MB uses a 5W CPU.

 

[giggles]

Probably it isn't. This is likely a 15W CPU, which will require a bit of active cooling. The fanless 12"MB uses a 5W CPU.

Nope this is a 5W “Plus” cpu with 1.6Ghz base clock and HD 617 graphics.
Like half way but not really halfway between the 5W and the 15W parts.
There are no dual core 8th gen 15W parts, they’re all quad core.

 

[MrGimper]

Still can’t tell if it’s fanless like the 12” or not.

It isn’t. In the keynote there was a shot of the inside where a fan is visible in the top left.

 

[giggles]

It isn’t. In the keynote there was a shot of the inside where a fan is visible in the top left.

I see, thanks.
Should anybody have the exact minute mark on hand that would be extremely useful.

 

[TrulsZK]

Nope - get out your dictionary

Ok, have never seen or used the word “bests” before.
Have checked multiple dictionaries online, and some, but not all of the mentions bests as a verb so I guess you are correct, but it is not a word that is too frequent.

 

[Falhófnir]

Still can’t tell if it’s fanless like the 12” or not.

Its not, but uses a fanless core Y CPU! I guess it might help to keep it from throttling so much, and I guess using the core Y might be how they countered the extra power draw from the retina screen and the smaller battery to stick at 12h usage...

 

[giggles]

Its not, but uses a fanless core Y CPU! I guess it might help to keep it from throttling so much, and I guess using the core Y might be how they countered the extra power draw from the retina screen and the smaller battery to stick at 12h usage...

How do we know it’s not.
People been telling me it’s not all day.
I ask: back it up (time mark in video). Never heard back.

 

[Falhófnir]

How do we know it’s not.
People been telling me it’s not all day.
I ask: back it up (time mark in video). Never heard back.

Look at 18 minutes in, shiny round thing in the top left corner

 

[TrulsZK]

I see, thanks.
Should anybody have the exact minute mark on hand that would be extremely useful.

It is at 18:12

 

[oneMadRssn]

Nope this is a 5W “Plus” cpu with 1.6Ghz base clock and HD 617 graphics.
Like half way but not really halfway between the 5W and the 15W parts.
There are no dual core 8th gen 15W parts, they’re all quad core.

Oh, thanks for the correction. Interesting then.

This makes choosing a Mac quite confusing now.

 

[giggles]

Look at 18 minutes in, shiny round thing in the top left corner

It is at 18:12

View attachment 799589

ok thanks all, now I see it, I was thinking the CAD-style video

 

[Westside guy]

I didn’t watch the keynote - did anyone say “can’t innovate my ass!” this time?

 

[Falhófnir]

ok thanks all, now I see it, I was thinking the CAD-style video

I'm still wondering why pair a fanless CPU with a fan cooled chassis - I can only imagine either the 8th gen U chips were too hot to properly cool in a machine of this size, were too expensive (I think Y-U price parity was broken with this gen), or this was the only way to actually retain 12h usage (which is a real plus for this machine imo)

 

[giggles]

I'm still wondering why pair a fanless CPU with a fan cooled chassis - I can only imagine either the 8th gen U chips were too hot to properly cool in a machine of this size, were too expensive (I think Y-U price parity was broken with this gen), or this was the only way to actually retain 12h usage (which is a real plus for this machine imo)

To push it from barely above Y to really half way between Y and U when needed.
This sounds all very custom so we’re making assumptions.

From a line up stand point, the Air needs to lean towards the old Air U chips performances.

Incidentally, Microsoft does fanless U 15W in the screen part of the Surface Book 2.

 

[Falhófnir]

To push it from barely above Y to really half way between Y and U when needed.
This sounds all very custom so we’re making assumptions.

From a line up stand point, the Air needs to lean towards the old Air U chips performances.

Incidentally, Microsoft does fanless U 15W in the screen part of the Surface Book 2.

The problem there is the lower TDP - by the sounds of things they have probably configured it to it's TDP up (7W) configuration, but that will still leave the GPU starved of power under load, so you're not going to get approaching MacBook Air (2015) performance out of it in both CPU and GPU at once. That's the big sacrifice with Y series chips.

They did also offer the fanless U in the surface pro 5 (7th gen chips) but have added it back with the 8th gen chips in the pro 6 which is interesting - it apparently does only kick in under very heavy load though!

 

[patent10021]

This just in. Toyota gets better gas milage than Ferrari.

 

[goobot]

I feel like they should have just released this as the new MacBook and killed the air.

 

[AppleWarMachine]

Probably it isn't. This is likely a 15W CPU, which will require a bit of active cooling. The fanless 12"MB uses a 5W CPU.

If it was fanless, I’m sure that they would have mentioned it as a feature,
+1 for the MacBook (silent)