Battery Life vs Thin and Light?

[dingclancy23]

So if there was an MBP optimized for battery life.

Shell is the same as 2015
Weight is the same as 2015
Keyboard is the same as 2015
Skylake 28W
74 wh battery
14-16 hour battery life

vs.

Thinner than Macbook Air
Same weight as Macbook Air
Skylake 28 W
Current 7-9 hour battery life (or a little bit worse)

Which would you buy?

I guess this goes in the square of priorities.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Whichever model makes me look the grooviest at the local Starbucks. If neither, I would have to research and test them, before making a decision.

 

[thats all folks]

I'd like to see a machine to favors performance and usability over size and battery. even with these latest machines, if you are working it hard, the battery just wont last a meaningful amount. if real work requires being plugged in anyways. what does it matter the battery lasts then, 2 hours or 4 or less?

 

[BBD90]

I'd like to see a machine to favors performance and usability over size and battery. even with these latest machines, if you are working it hard, the battery just wont last a meaningful amount. if real work requires being plugged in anyways. what does it matter the battery lasts then, 2 hours or 4 or less?

Performance, usability, and battery life are all positives I would attribute to the 2015 chassis, not the 2016 chassis.

 

[ugru]

BTW Apple could have made it last at least 1 hour more, but for the sake of weight (cretins) and to lure people into updating in a couple of revisions ("See? this years's rMBP has 1hr battery more !!!1!!111") they made the battery cells smaller than the avaliable space in the case...

If apple made a MBP thick as last year's but with with better battery life, faster CPU and faster iGPU and dGPU i'd buy one istantly...

 

[kokhoong0624]

I think that the decrease of weight in the 15" is very welcome as I need to carry it around uni everyday. For the 13", not at all... the last year model is already very portable.

 

[ugru]

My first Apple computer, the Powerbook Ti G4 (15 years ago), was 2.6 cm X 34.1 cm X 24.1 cm X 2.4 kg and was perfect...

Having to give up features for the only sake of going thinner and lighter is asinine. If they kept that form factor now we could have a 12 Hrs battery, 32GB of RAM (for those who need), magsafe, 1 USB type A, SD card and an nVidia 1060....

If you need ultraportability buy a MacBook...

 

[leman]

Having to give up features for the only sake of going thinner and lighter is asinine. If they kept that form factor now we could have a 12 Hrs battery, 32GB of RAM (for those who need), magsafe, 1 USB type A, SD card and an nVidia 1060....

Wrong brand my friend. Apple always made ultraportables, first and foremost. Your Powerbook was also considered thin and light when it came out. And it certainly didn't use fastest available graphics at that time. If you want a workstation or a gaming laptop, you'll have to look elsewhere. Apple's focus on thin and light is over a decade old now, and shouldn't surprise anyone.

 

[ugru]

I am not surprised, it has been like this for ages, that does not mean I am happy with it. I cited the PB Ti not for the internal components but for the form factor.

I hoped that with the advance in thechnology we could stick more powerful hardware in the same, already perfect, enclosure. Instead they used lame powered hardware in a smaller enclosure...Bummer

 

[leman]

The thing about battery life: there is a point where it gets into diminishing returns. In many regards, 10 hours is a very reasonable optimal value. It is fairly unlikely that one will need to have the machine running longer without having a chance to plug in. When I look at my usage, I need the battery mostly when I am on a business trip, traveling, teaching and in meetings. Less then 7 hours would be pushing it in many cases (also if i need to run something more intensive occasionally, the battery will go down quicker). But more than 10 hours is a situational need. I think that Apple went for 10 hours because it is a very reasonable estimation of how an average user would use the computer. Its all about trade-offs, and it seems that Apple feels that a permanent weight reduction is more useful than situational extra hours of battery.

Now, at this point one can exclaim: but I don't care about what an average user does, I have different needs. That might be true, but at the same time, Apple never offered any kind of customisability in this regards. They design their hardware around performance tiers and you either buy it or not. They simply don't do (and never did) specialised hardware.

 

[ugru]

The problem is that by going that thinner/lighter they failed to achieve even their 10 hour limit, except for the non TB 13".

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Look guys if you don't agree with apples design decisions don't buy their stuff whining on and on about it will change nothing, Apple are selling these computers faster than they can make them.

THey have proved to be right with their design decisions for more than a decade with everyone else copying them to a greater or lesser extent so I can't imagine all this endless dissection and hand wringing means anything to them.

By march the new MacBook pros will be considered the standard to beat once all this nonsense from a very vocal minority dies down.

 

[Nik]

Ok, question: What good is the "thin and light" approach if you have to carry a power adapter with you because of the decreased battery life? Furthermore it increases the probability of an accident because MagSafe is gone. I do not get the kind of assessments some people make.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Ok, question: What good is the "thin and light" approach if you have to carry a power adapter with you because of the decreased battery life? Furthermore it increases the probability of an accident because MagSafe is gone. I do not get the kind of assessments some people make.

The battery life has stayed the same, the reviews have made this fairly clear, if you need a charger for 8 hours you'll most likely won't risk It with 10 hours, this is something you will carry anyway.

I am also disappointed by the loss of magsafe myself but a little usb c adapter will change this within weeks of course and will mean you can have magsafe whichever side you like. I understand their design decision I don't particularly agree with it but it really is a very small issue easily remedied.

 

[MBPro17]

I think they could get it thinner and lighter if they eliminated the battery completely and required you to plug in wherever you go.

Maybe if you can't find an outlet you can carry a portable battery power pack?

 

[NT1440]

So if there was an MBP optimized for battery life.

Shell is the same as 2015
Weight is the same as 2015
Keyboard is the same as 2015
Skylake 28W
74 wh battery
14-16 hour battery life

vs.

Thinner than Macbook Air
Same weight as Macbook Air
Skylake 28 W
Current 7-9 hour battery life (or a little bit worse)

Which would you buy?

I guess this goes in the square of priorities.

Where are you getting this assumption that keeping the same shell and weight of the 2015 would mean a 14-16 hour battery life?
[doublepost=1479744734][/doublepost]

BTW Apple could have made it last at least 1 hour more, but for the sake of weight (cretins) and to lure people into updating in a couple of revisions ("See? this years's rMBP has 1hr battery more !!!1!!111") they made the battery cells smaller than the avaliable space in the case...

If apple made a MBP thick as last year's but with with better battery life, faster CPU and faster iGPU and dGPU i'd buy one istantly...

And you know this had nothing to do with cooling requirements because.....

 

[Ma2k5]

So if there was an MBP optimized for battery life.

Shell is the same as 2015
Weight is the same as 2015
Keyboard is the same as 2015
Skylake 28W
74 wh battery
14-16 hour battery life

vs.

Thinner than Macbook Air
Same weight as Macbook Air
Skylake 28 W
Current 7-9 hour battery life (or a little bit worse)

Which would you buy?

I guess this goes in the square of priorities.

Well with 74wh battery, with the new display (which uses 30% less energy), that would be some insane battery life and I think I would take that.

Granted this would mean possibly 15-17+ hours on battery tests and most would be like "Well that is excessive", and it is - except when I am actually doing work which isn't just browsing and stuff. You see, if the wifi/iTunes tests that people bench mark with give you 10 hours, then if you are multi-tasking doing actual work and using the CPU/iGPU, you'll only probably get 5 hours at max. So in the case where I had a 74wh battery, this would actually mean I may actually get 10 hours of real world professional usage!

 

[cerberusss]

Ok, question: What good is the "thin and light" approach if you have to carry a power adapter with you because of the decreased battery life?

Personally I seldom carry a power adapter with me. Basically I travel between home, client, office and parents. I've dropped a couple of adapters everywhere, and a lightning cable to boot.

 

[BBD90]

Where are you getting this assumption that keeping the same shell and weight of the 2015 would mean a 14-16 hour battery life?

From logic. The components of this years MacBook Pro are obviously more power efficient than last years model and we know last years model lasted 8-10 hours depending on use. So if we throw in more power efficient components into a laptop that was getting 8-10 hours of use already logic dictates that the laptop will last longer. I don't know is 14-17 hours is right but I think 12-14 hours would be doable.

 

[NT1440]

From logic. The components of this years MacBook Pro are obviously more power efficient than last years model and we know last years model lasted 8-10 hours depending on use. So if we throw in more power efficient components into a laptop that was getting 8-10 hours of use already logic dictates that the laptop will last longer. I don't know is 14-17 hours is right but I think 12-14 hours would be doable.

So in other words, with no actual math done you've just pulled a number out that seems "reasonable".

I'm sure you'd get more battery life, but lets not play armchair electronic engineer shall we?

 

[Ma2k5]

So in other words, with no actual math done you've just pulled a number out that seems "reasonable".

I'm sure you'd get more battery life, but lets not play armchair electronic engineer shall we?

You are so off-topic it is unbelievable. He has done nothing wrong to assume a battery life. The point still stands, would you, or would you not, prefer a larger body and have 74wh instead of 49/54wh, or keep the latter and a thinner body. You pointing out that he has NO way to know exactly how much extra hours of battery you would get with 51%/37% more battery capacity (tb vs non-tb), is irrelevant.

Why has OP asking what people prefer, made you end up with a stick up your rear side? Salty much?

 

[ugru]

And you know this had nothing to do with cooling requirements because.....

....because last years' rMBP with the same TDP components was stuffed with battery cells...and it's battery lasted more.

Simple as that.

 

[NT1440]

You are so off-topic it is unbelievable. He has done nothing wrong to assume a battery life. The point still stands, would you, or would you not, prefer a larger body and have 74wh instead of 49/54wh, or keep the latter and a thinner body. You pointing out that he has NO way to know exactly how much extra hours of battery you would get with 51%/37% more battery capacity (tb vs non-tb), is irrelevant.

Why has OP asking what people prefer, made you end up with a stick up your rear side? Salty much?

Why not ask if people would prefer an 84 hour battery life seeing as specifics don't seem to matter in these forums.

 

[Saturn1217]

If I absolutely had to pick, I would choose battery life. Portability is completely ruined if you have to carry around the charger and worry about plugging in most of the time.

I do believe however, that if Apple hadn't prioritized the touchbar and needlessly gigantic trackpad we could have come closer to achieving both light weight and better battery life with the 2016 MBPs (as evidenced by the non-touchbar version which seems to do a little better battery wise).

 

[kokhoong0624]

The problem is it never ends. People keep asking more. And I think the engineering team at Apple must have made a lot of statistical analysis and research of the main usage pattern of the mbp and this is the best they could come out with.
If Apple gives more battery life, then people would ask for DDR4 RAM, but in reality, even the 99.5kW Battery wouldn't be sufficient to provide enough energy for the MBP to sleep for more than one week. It would die out in few days due to technical constraints. (Read the article at the Home Page).
If Apple gives more RAM, people would start complaining about the exorbitant prices apple charge for it. (Which I agree too).
If Apple keep the MBP with the same chassis, people would say that there's no innovation, the old chassis is outdated etc (Which is seen in many of the Old "Waiting for Skylake" thread)

It's really hard to satisfy everyone, but yes I agree, I would like longer battery life, but not of the expense of weight. I think it's a good compromise between weight and battery life for this variant. It makes more people lean towards the 15" and it gives more bang for buck. For the 13 inch, I think it's too much of a compromise but.. well. Apple can't make a 13" which is the same mass with the same as the 15" right?