Battery life for 13" and 15" Macbook Pro

[touchtouch]

After I tried smc reset and did some changes on the settings, I am satisfied with the battery life now. But I am a bit confused. I only get 4404 mAh of Full Charge Capacity. Is it normal? I own the 13inch base model w/ touchbar.

 

[badlydrawnboy]

I'd love to get more clear on what's going on here...

I've now done two SMC resets. Both times, it seemed to help at first (according to the estimate of time remaining and power consumption). But after a cycle—or even at the end of the same cycle I did the SMC reset on—it became clear that the effect was minor, if anything at all.

I'm on my 6th cycle now. I just unplugged from power and originally the estimate was 6:10. It has now climbed up to 7:49. The reason the estimates vary so much is that the power consumption jumps all over the place. When I first unplugged from charge it was 686 mAH. Now it is 282 mAH. A second later it is 372 mAH. Now my time remaining estimate is 7:59.

But despite all of this fiddling around, the cold, hard truth is that I've never managed to get over 7.5 hours on a charge when I've tracked the actual usage.

Question for all of you: what battery life are you now seeing, with actual use (not estimates)?

 

[lobo1978]

On what kind of computer are you? An old MacBook Pro? Because your signature is saying u just ordered a MBP 13 TB... So, don't show us old stats, it is really not helpful

Ups, I'm sorry - specs were given before. Now I'm testing noTouch base 13"
[doublepost=1479827525][/doublepost]

You have the non-TB version, though. No one is complaining about battery life with those.

True, true. But if noTouch version is getting 11-12 hrs on charge -- Touch version should get claimed 10 hrs (Touch screen + 28W CPU + smaller battery).

However as somebody already pointed out, I will have to wait to verify it until my BTO Touch will arrive.

 

[badlydrawnboy]

Ups, I'm sorry - specs were given before. Now I'm testing noTouch base 13"
[doublepost=1479827525][/doublepost]

True, true. But if noTouch version is getting 11-12 hrs on charge -- Touch version should get claimed 10 hrs (Touch screen + 28W CPU + smaller battery).

However as somebody already pointed out, I will have to wait to verify it until my BTO Touch will arrive.

Should, perhaps, but I have not seen a single reliable report of the TB version getting 10 hours with normal use. Not here, and not in any review.

Right now my 13" TB is showing 683 mAH and all I'm doing is typing this forum post. I have a few other apps open (Polymail, Fantastical 2, Messages, 2Do), but they are sitting idle. At that power consumption I'd expect to get about 5 more hours, which is exactly what Battery Health 2 is predicting. I've only been on battery for 58 minutes with this charge so far, so that would amount to about 6-7 hours of battery life total, which is exactly what I (and others here, and in reviews) have been getting.

 

[NoWayBehind]

So I am downloading, watching youtube and obviously writing in this Forum. I have this device for 2 hours now so I was expecting a rather moderate estimate. I have 12 hours left though... (pulled the charger 10 minutes ago)

 

[badlydrawnboy]

So I am downloading, watching youtube and obviously writing in this Forum. I have this device for 2 hours now so I was expecting a rather moderate estimate. I have 12 hours left though... (pulled the charger 10 minutes ago)

The estimates are not accurate. Please use Battery Logger or similar to track the actual time you get on battery.
[doublepost=1479831916][/doublepost]

So I am downloading, watching youtube and obviously writing in this Forum. I have this device for 2 hours now so I was expecting a rather moderate estimate. I have 12 hours left though... (pulled the charger 10 minutes ago)

Also, do you have the TB version or non-TB? If non-TB, 12 hours is probably not too far off (actual battery life for that seems to be 9.5-11 hours based on most reviews/reports).

The TB version seems to be 6-8 hours, with most people getting less than 7.

 

[zhenya]

That's NOT how you do this 'math' - to use watts you must take into equation voltage. Use mA and mAh to calculate estimated time. Look for my previous posts (several back in this thread) on how to properly calculate usage.

Watts calculated already includes voltage in the equation. The calculation made by apps like Coconut Battery works perfectly by dividing current power used in Watts by the Whr capacity of the battery.

I stand corrected, thanks.

I will stick with Battery Health 2, then, since it shows mA and mAh.

The Coconut Battery method works fine.

 

[badlydrawnboy]

Watts calculated already includes voltage in the equation. The calculation made by apps like Coconut Battery works perfectly by dividing current power used in Watts by the Whr capacity of the battery.



The Coconut Battery method works fine.

Interesting! Either way, power consumption is too high. I'm using Battery Health 2 for this current cycle, and I'm averaging >500 mAH, often as high as 650+, even with light usage. That explains the poor battery life.

 

[NoWayBehind]

The estimates are not accurate. Please use Battery Logger or similar to track the actual time you get on battery.
[doublepost=1479831916][/doublepost]

Also, do you have the TB version or non-TB? If non-TB, 12 hours is probably not too far off (actual battery life for that seems to be 9.5-11 hours based on most reviews/reports).

The TB version seems to be 6-8 hours, with most people getting less than 7.

I have the 15inch TB. Yes I know the indicators are rough, so I will see what real world usage I get. It shortly fell down a bit when using about 5 applications at once (+ installing and downloading, still setting up), but then jumped back up to 10 hours. So far this still seems a bit better than most other users are reporting. I've seen battery times like 3 hours lol. And yes I am solely referring to estimates so far.

 

[justinf77]

Anandtech needs to come to the rescue, and fast. I want to see a proper battery test between the TB and non-TB 13". Although the Arstechnica, PC Mag, and Laptop Mag battery tests all had the non-TB version lasting 1-2 hours longer in their tests, which seems to be pretty accurate from user reports so far.

 

[lrremac]

Got a replacement 13" TB from the Apple store yesterday! Same issues with battery, no indexing of any kind going on anymore and I have gotten 6:15hr of battery so far (from early morning till now) using a simple script to browse to a new website every 30 secs with 50% brightness and NO OTHER APPS OPEN!

I will give Apple a week to issue some FW/SW update otherwise this is going back for a refund!

 

[elvin_hu]

15 2.7Ghz 512GB here
I'm getting 10 hours with only Safari open at 50% brightness after the first charging cycle and 9 hours with Safari, Lightroom open at 70% brightness. The result might change though.

 

[Westbrook0]

I'd love to get more clear on what's going on here...

I've now done two SMC resets. Both times, it seemed to help at first (according to the estimate of time remaining and power consumption). But after a cycle—or even at the end of the same cycle I did the SMC reset on—it became clear that the effect was minor, if anything at all.

I'm on my 6th cycle now. I just unplugged from power and originally the estimate was 6:10. It has now climbed up to 7:49. The reason the estimates vary so much is that the power consumption jumps all over the place. When I first unplugged from charge it was 686 mAH. Now it is 282 mAH. A second later it is 372 mAH. Now my time remaining estimate is 7:59.

But despite all of this fiddling around, the cold, hard truth is that I've never managed to get over 7.5 hours on a charge when I've tracked the actual usage.

Question for all of you: what battery life are you now seeing, with actual use (not estimates)?

I've timed my last two cycles with mostly safari/calendar/mail and a few other things open here and there and gotten 7-7.5 hours give or take. This is with shutting down instead of putting it to sleep when I go to bed.
[doublepost=1479840378][/doublepost]

Got a replacement 13" TB from the Apple store yesterday! Same issues with battery, no indexing of any kind going on anymore and I have gotten 6:15hr of battery so far (from early morning till now) using a simple script to browse to a new website every 30 secs with 50% brightness and NO OTHER APPS OPEN!

I will give Apple a week to issue some FW/SW update otherwise this is going back for a refund!

The return window is extended to January so I wouldn't panic just yet. Maybe Apple will give us a software update soon.

 

[lrremac]

15 2.7Ghz 512GB here
I'm getting 10 hours with only Safari open at 50% brightness after the first charging cycle and 9 hours with Safari, Lightroom open at 70% brightness. The result might change though.

We are not talking about NON-TB MBP's here, they seem to hit their battery numbers provided by Apple just fine. We are talking about the TB enabled MBP's which seems consistently and in all reviews (Verge, Cnet etc) to fall WAY short of 10 hours.

 

[elvin_hu]

We are not talking about NON-TB MBP's here, they seem to hit their battery numbers provided by Apple just fine. We are talking about the TB enabled MBP's which seems consistently and in all reviews (Verge, Cnet etc) to fall WAY short of 10 hours.

There is no non-TB version of 15 inch MBP

 

[badlydrawnboy]

There is no non-TB version of 15 inch MBP

It does seem that the 15" has better battery life than the 13" TB, which makes sense given the size of the battery. I've posted this before, but as far as I can tell from reports here and elsewhere, and reviews, here's what people are getting:

• 13" TB: 6-7 hours, with most getting <7 hours per charge
• 15" TB: 7-8 hours (?? seems like I haven't seen as many reports from 15" users)
• 13" non-TB: 9-10 hours

Again, I really hope Apple can do something about this, but the numbers above aren't totally surprising given the differences in power consumption and battery size between the 3 different models.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I'd love to get more clear on what's going on here...

I've now done two SMC resets. Both times, it seemed to help at first (according to the estimate of time remaining and power consumption). But after a cycle—or even at the end of the same cycle I did the SMC reset on—it became clear that the effect was minor, if anything at all.

I'm on my 6th cycle now. I just unplugged from power and originally the estimate was 6:10. It has now climbed up to 7:49. The reason the estimates vary so much is that the power consumption jumps all over the place. When I first unplugged from charge it was 686 mAH. Now it is 282 mAH. A second later it is 372 mAH. Now my time remaining estimate is 7:59.

But despite all of this fiddling around, the cold, hard truth is that I've never managed to get over 7.5 hours on a charge when I've tracked the actual usage.

Question for all of you: what battery life are you now seeing, with actual use (not estimates)?

According to Apple, SMC is for when the battery isn't charging properly or when the lights on the battery (for applicable models) is acting up. SMC in this case will not render real results. Al it does, is temporarily change the usage left hours. Essentially, it is a waste of time for what you and many others are trying to do.

 

[elvin_hu]

We are not talking about NON-TB MBP's here, they seem to hit their battery numbers provided by Apple just fine. We are talking about the TB enabled MBP's which seems consistently and in all reviews (Verge, Cnet etc) to fall WAY short of 10 hours.

My result might change though so I'm not 100% sure about it

 

[badlydrawnboy]

According to Apple, SMC is for when the battery isn't charging properly or when the lights on the battery (for applicable models) is acting up. SMC in this case will not render real results. Al it does, is temporarily change the usage left hours. Essentially, it is a waste of time for what you and many others are trying to do.

Yes, that seems exactly the effect it had for me. It changed the estimated time remaining, but in reality didn't change the actual time on battery.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Yes, that seems exactly the effect it had for me. It changed the estimated time remaining, but in reality didn't change the actual time on battery.

What people need to do, is file reports with Apple. Complaining on the forum (in and of itself) is not going to get results.

In my opinion, (such as it is) I think some of the problem is software (Sierra) related.

 

[badlydrawnboy]

What people need to do, is file reports with Apple. Complaining on the forum (in and of itself) is not going to get results.

In my opinion, (such as it is) I think some of the problem is software (Sierra) related.

I had an initial conversation with a senior Apple advisor. On the call she advised me to return the MBP. However, a little later she followed up with this:

I was able to do a little more research on your issue. There seems to be an issue with the battery life on these MacBook Pro.

I wanted to know if you have the time later today lets capture some information about your MacBook Pro for our Engineers to investigate the issue.

Hope to hear from you soon!

It seems she's admitting there are battery issues with "these MacBook Pro". But it's possible she meant to write "this", in which case she's at least admitting that my particular machine may have an issue and 6-6.5 hours is not up to spec.

I've tried repeatedly to reach her again since I got this email (she asked me to call her), but haven't been able to.

Also, others have reported that AppleCare support reps have told them to return their MBP. That also suggests that at least for now Apple is admitting that they should get better than 6-6.5 hours.

 

[mercedes27]

It is just not normal, that 15" and 13" have the same real time mAh usage.
But for example - right now on ma late 2012 13" retina - real time usage 927mAh and 11,7 Watts. Just email, safari, iMessage, finder.
I think, that with smaller battery - it will be highly user dependent.

Please - you with new MacBooks and 2015 MacBooks - write down real time usage in mAh and Watts - so we can compare. I wrote mine - with 50% brightness and some basic sw opened.

 

[badlydrawnboy]

My usage as reported before varies between 220-750 mAH, just using basic productivity software (no intensive processing, video rendering, anything like that). 55% brightness.

 

[Apple_Robert]

My usage as reported before varies between 220-750 mAH, just using basic productivity software (no intensive processing, video rendering, anything like that). 55% brightness.

I went to full battery at 2:42pm est. First 'go round with the battery since I bought the MBP on Sunday.

As soon as I disconnected power, battery estimate (which doesn't mean much of anything) said 5:25.

 

[elvin_hu]

15 inch, 80% lightness, 7:30