Battery life in the new MBP

[Mrs HBF]

I bought my MBP in the summer of 2010 and the battery life advertised was up to 10 hours. I can get between 8 1/2 and 9 hours. Why is it with newer MBPs, the battery life is now up to 7 hours? Why would they worsen the battery life on the newest model?

 

[SpyderBite]

I'm getting about 7 hours out of my 2012 13" MBP. That is with Caffeine running (zero sleep or display dim). Casual use.. IRC, Firefox, Mail, Pages. Heavier use such as running Windows in bootcamp and playing swtor.. my battery life drops to around 5 hours.

Edit to answer your question: More hardware demands on the battery. The processors, etc. draw more power than their predecessors.

 

[TheMacBookPro]

The battery size remained the same, Apple just changed their way of estimating the battery life. If you look at some reviews, the times they get frequently meet or even exceed Apple's claims, whereas before their claims were overinflated.

 

[hi-there]

I bought my MBP in the summer of 2010 and the battery life advertised was up to 10 hours. I can get between 8 1/2 and 9 hours. Why is it with newer MBPs, the battery life is now up to 7 hours? Why would they worsen the battery life on the newest model?

If you are referring to retina model... the retina display requires brighter back light and the small enclosure limits the size of battery.

 

[TheMacBookPro]

If you are referring to retina model... the retina display requires brighter back light and the small enclosure limits the size of battery.

Actually, the rMBP houses a much larger battery than the regular MBP. ~100watt hours compared to 75 watt hours iirc.

 

[Mrs HBF]

Actually, the rMBP houses a much larger battery than the regular MBP. ~100watt hours compared to 75 watt hours iirc.

The rMBP is also being advertised having a battery life of up to 7 hours. Read the reviews and you'll see the reviewers are talking about the 7 hours' battery life. Some are getting 4 hours of battery in their tests.

http://www.wired.com/reviews/2012/06/macbook-pro/all/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...531283672616.html?KEYWORDS=macbook+pro+retina (Disappointed with battery life)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/t...ion-state-of-the-art.html?_r=1&ref=technology

Why has Apple gone away from batteries lasting up to 10 hours?

 

[magbarn]

The rMBP is also being advertised having a battery life of up to 7 hours. Read the reviews and you'll see the reviewers are talking about the 7 hours' battery life. Some are getting 4 hours of battery in their tests.

http://www.wired.com/reviews/2012/06/macbook-pro/all/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...531283672616.html?KEYWORDS=macbook+pro+retina (Disappointed with battery life)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/t...ion-state-of-the-art.html?_r=1&ref=technology

Why has Apple gone away from batteries lasting up to 10 hours?

The rMBP resolution doesn't come for 'free' power-wise. The higher res, more powerful backlight (yes it's dimmer, but light doesn't pass through as well as the lower res screens), even the IPS tech uses more juice than the previous MBP TN screens.

 

[Vctr]

I bought my MBP in the summer of 2010 and the battery life advertised was up to 10 hours. I can get between 8 1/2 and 9 hours. Why is it with newer MBPs, the battery life is now up to 7 hours? Why would they worsen the battery life on the newest model?

Apple had a whole explanation for why they restated their 10 hour battery life claims on their laptops. I think it was in 2011 when they unveiled the new Macbook Airs where they said that their 10 hour battery life claim wasn't accurate and that they were going to measure their battery life claims in a more accurate way, mimicing real life use. The Macbook Airs that were unveiled in 2011 also had an advertised 7 hour battery life. So according to Apple, it isn't a matter of their laptops getting less battery life, its more of a matter that their claims are more accurate now.

Whether you believe this is another thing ... but they did offer an "explanation".

 

[Dangerous Theory]

The rMBP is also being advertised having a battery life of up to 7 hours. Read the reviews and you'll see the reviewers are talking about the 7 hours' battery life. Some are getting 4 hours of battery in their tests.

http://www.wired.com/reviews/2012/06/macbook-pro/all/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...531283672616.html?KEYWORDS=macbook+pro+retina (Disappointed with battery life)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/t...ion-state-of-the-art.html?_r=1&ref=technology

Why has Apple gone away from batteries lasting up to 10 hours?

As a poster already explained above, Apple changed their way of estimating battery life since the 2011 models. They now provide a more realistic estimate. Of course, you may be able to get more than 7 hours, but generally people will never see that sort of longevity. I personally almost always have full brightness on in the day, so my battery life is never that good.

 

[TheMacBookPro]

The rMBP is also being advertised having a battery life of up to 7 hours. Read the reviews and you'll see the reviewers are talking about the 7 hours' battery life. Some are getting 4 hours of battery in their tests.

http://www.wired.com/reviews/2012/06/macbook-pro/all/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...531283672616.html?KEYWORDS=macbook+pro+retina (Disappointed with battery life)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/t...ion-state-of-the-art.html?_r=1&ref=technology

I'm easily getting 6.5-7 hours of wireless productivity out of mine, I can tell you that much.

Why has Apple gone away from batteries lasting up to 10 hours?

I'm sorry but did you even read my post

They merely changed the way they measured battery life to reflect real-life usage better.

 

[Mrs HBF]

As a poster already explained above, Apple changed their way of estimating battery life since the 2011 models. They now provide a more realistic estimate. Of course, you may be able to get more than 7 hours, but generally people will never see that sort of longevity. I personally almost always have full brightness on in the day, so my battery life is never that good.

More realistic? My battery life is between 8 1/2 − 9 hours. Seems that they have worsened the battery life to be advertising 'up to 7 hours' when their older 2010 model is getting this average user at minimum 8.5 hours.

If you are referring to retina model... the retina display requires brighter back light and the small enclosure limits the size of battery.

Actually I wasn't. Others have. For me, I'm talking about the MBP 13" without the retina display.

Apple had a whole explanation for why they restated their 10 hour battery life claims on their laptops. I think it was in 2011 when they unveiled the new Macbook Airs where they said that their 10 hour battery life claim wasn't accurate and that they were going to measure their battery life claims in a more accurate way, mimicing real life use. The Macbook Airs that were unveiled in 2011 also had an advertised 7 hour battery life. So according to Apple, it isn't a matter of their laptops getting less battery life, its more of a matter that their claims are more accurate now.

Whether you believe this is another thing ... but they did offer an "explanation".

Interesting. Thank you. I have to wonder how legit that explanation is considering my usage certainly is way over 7 hours.

 

[Dangerous Theory]

More realistic? My battery life is between 8 1/2 − 9 hours. Seems that they have worsened the battery life to be advertising 'up to 7 hours' when their older 2010 model is getting this average user at minimum 8.5 hours.

Try not to confuse your situation with the majority. You won't find many people who get that sort of time with normal usage on their 2010 MBP, or any model for that matter. Personally, we have both a 2010 and 2011 13" MBP in this household and neither get 8 hours during normal use. They both probably get 4-5 hours. I've seen the battery indicator estimate as high as 13 hours before, but that was idling on very low brightness.

 

[TheMacBookPro]

More realistic? My battery life is between 8 1/2 − 9 hours. Seems that they have worsened the battery life to be advertising 'up to 7 hours' when their older 2010 model is getting this average user at minimum 8.5 hours.

Sounds like you've got a better-than-average machine then. I was definitely not able to get anywhere near that much battery life with average (wi-fi internet and MS Word on mid-level brightness) usage on my old 13" Pro. Nobody I know who has a 13" Pro can eke out more than 5 or 6 hours either.