Battery with Kabylake for 15" Touch Bar rMBP ? Has it got any better ?

[augustya]

Hi Guys,

I was planning to pull the trigger last year for the 2016 Touch Bar 15" rMBP but was deterred by the battery life it had people were reporting dismal battery life of the 2016 15" rMBP Touch Bar models has it got any better with the 2017 Kabylake processor would the Kabylake processors improve the battery life I am waiting for some real feedback on the 2017 Kabylake Touch Bar 15" rMBP's.

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

Before deciding to shoot a MacBook. Understand that the batteries are absolutely fine on both. There was a bug at launch of the 2016 that affected some early tests and was sorted within a week. Otherwise as with any new computer, the battery is skewed into short life during the initial setup of the machine. After a couple of days they're fine.

However, if you feel that the 10+ hours of battery life reported by Apple and users is still abysmal, then it'll be nigh on the same with the 2017.

 

[augustya]

How much time battery is it with the 2017 Kabylake 15" Touch Bar rMBP ? is 10 hours standard for everyone?

 

[The Mercurian]

Before deciding to shoot a MacBook. Understand that the batteries are absolutely fine on both. There was a bug at launch of the 2016 that affected some early tests and was sorted within a week. Otherwise as with any new computer, the battery is skewed into short life during the initial setup of the machine. After a couple of days they're fine.

However, if you feel that the 10+ hours of battery life reported by Apple and users is still abysmal, then it'll be nigh on the same with the 2017.

Aye. But even with bugs fixed - its a legit question if the battery life is improved. I mean that is the whole point of Kabylake is it no ? It is supposed to improve the battery life all things being equal. Its possible of course they used the extra juice to run the processor a bit faster leaving the battery life equal. But the answers to these questions are not clear to me as yet.

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

Aye. But even with bugs fixed - its a legit question if the battery life is improved. I mean that is the whole point of Kabylake is it no ? It is supposed to improve the battery life all things being equal. Its possible of course they used the extra juice to run the processor a bit faster leaving the battery life equal. But the answers to these questions are not clear to me as yet.

Well it depends what you mean by 'improved'. If by improved you mean have they fixed the issues, then yes. If by improved you mean have they improved the 10 hours then no, it is the same. Kabylake was an efficiency upgrade, they are still 28w CPUs, but they are more efficient and so a around 20% more powerful from the same TDP. The main difference between Skylake/Kabylake is media functionality baked into the processor, and a slight performance gain.

 

[augustya]

Well it depends what you mean by 'improved'. If by improved you mean have they fixed the issues, then yes. If by improved you mean have they improved the 10 hours then no, it is the same. Kabylake was an efficiency upgrade, they are still 28w CPUs, but they are more efficient and so a around 20% more powerful from the same TDP. The main difference between Skylake/Kabylake is media functionality baked into the processor, and a slight performance gain.

But the 10 Hours battery is for there, is standard on the 15" machines ?

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

But the 10 Hours battery is for there, is standard on the 15" machines ?

Yes? Not quite sure I understand the question. But both the 2016 and 2017 have 10 hours battery life.

 

[augustya]

Yes? Not quite sure I understand the question. But both the 2016 and 2017 have 10 hours battery life.

View attachment 704790

Exactly my point that is what Apple advertises in real life usage people don't get 10 hours it is up to 10 Hours so it could be 5 hours aswell and in most of the cases Atleast in the 2016 models no one has reported more than 4-6 hours of battery ! I don't know what is the case with 2017 models ?

 

[aristobrat]

How much time battery is it with the 2017 Kabylake 15" Touch Bar rMBP ? is 10 hours standard for everyone?

10 hours is "best case", IMO.

Everyone's battery life is going to be different based on what kind of work they do on their computer. Work that uses more processor will cause the battery to drain more quickly. Apple's battery test (IMO) doesn't do work that uses a lot of processor. And they dim the screen.

There aren't a lot of threads complaining about battery life. To me, that's the biggest indication that most people are content with it.

Nobody is going to be able to tell you how much battery your workflow will give you. Buy from Apple, use for 14 days, and return it if it's not meeting your expectations.

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

Exactly my point that is what Apple advertises in real life usage people don't get 10 hours it is up to 10 Hours so it could be 5 hours aswell and in most of the cases Atleast in the 2016 models no one has reported more than 4-6 hours of battery ! I don't know what is the case with 2017 models ?

I am reporting right now I get 10 hours battery life under average use. I would expect 4-6 hours under my use but this thing has surpassed my expectations and I generally get at least 8 hours under reasonable usage. Obviously if you're rendering out large files and stressing the CPU then you can never realistically expect a full 10 hours. I have seen people claim 12 hours and stuff too.

10 hours is "best case", IMO.

Everyone's battery life is going to be different based on what kind of work they do on their computer. Work that uses more processor will cause the battery to drain more quickly. Apple's battery test (IMO) doesn't do work that uses a lot of processor. And they dim the screen.

There aren't a lot of threads complaining about battery life. To me, that's the biggest indication that most people are content with it.

Exactly, a lot of it is subjective to your use. 100% brightness and rendering a 4K video file will not net you 10 hours.

 

[augustya]

10 hours is "best case", IMO.

Everyone's battery life is going to be different based on what kind of work they do on their computer. Work that uses more processor will cause the battery to drain more quickly. Apple's battery test (IMO) doesn't do work that uses a lot of processor. And they dim the screen.

There aren't a lot of threads complaining about battery life. To me, that's the biggest indication that most people are content with it.

Nobody is going to be able to tell you how much battery your workflow will give you. Buy from Apple, use for 14 days, and return it if it's not meeting your expectations.

Not every one here is from the U.S or U.K or EU. Apple has different policies for different countries don't have the 14 day try and use and return policy here ! Having said that would like to have more opinions on this

 

[KGB7]

YMMV, so up to 10 hours in perfect conditions.

 

[augustya]

YMMV, so up to 10 hours in perfect conditions.

Otherwise how much ?

 

[KGB7]

Otherwise how much ?

3 to 10 hours. I can't see the future or what you will be doing with MBP.

Again. 3 hours worst case, 10 hours best case.

 

[augustya]

3 to 10 hours. I can't see the future or what you will be doing with MBP.

Again. 3 hours worst case, 10 hours best case.

Agreed you can't guess how will I use the MacBook but there is some bare minimum standards right that's what I am talking about ! So 3 hours minimum is what you are saying that is shocking !

 

[wiffle]

Er... not sure what you're expecting haha. What are you trying to get at?

Obviously if you have high CPU/GPU utilization for a long period of time your battery life will suffer - this is the same across ALL laptops no matter what make. I'm sure some of the competitors will offer even less battery life than the 3 hour minimum. In 'general use' scenarios (browsing, word processing, youtube etc etc) I can consistently get 8+ hours on both 2016 and 2017 15" MBPs.

 

[KGB7]

Agreed you can't guess how will I use the MacBook but there is some bare minimum standards right that's what I am talking about ! So 3 hours minimum is what you are saying that is shocking !

Bare minimum only, than you can squeeze 10 hours out of it.

But you didn't mention bare minimum in original post. You just asked how long it will last.

 

[aristobrat]

Agreed you can't guess how will I use the MacBook but there is some bare minimum standards right that's what I am talking about ! So 3 hours minimum is what you are saying that is shocking !

There is no such thing as "bare minimum" standards.

What "bare minimum" means to you isn't what "bare minimum" means to someone else. You need to define what you're asking for.

So how about you post up what kind of work you plan on doing with your Mac (i.e. what specific programs you'll be working with), and then maybe someone who does the same kind of work can give you their battery experience.

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

Go buy a Dell 4K with 32GB of RAM, and then complain about battery life. Apple are consistently rated amongst the most powerful laptop to battery life. It is always a balance. If you want the most powerful machine imaginable then you'll get shocking battery life. If you want the longest battery life imaginable then you'll get shocking performance. With the MBP, you can get upwards of 10 hours, there is no minimum but it should manage at least 3 hours rendering at 100% CPU usage. Which is shockingly good.

If you are intending on rendering large files constantly off the battery then I'm sure you're probably aware that no battery short of a fusion reactor is going to provide 'adequate' battery life.

 

[leman]

Atleast in the 2016 models no one has reported more than 4-6 hours of battery !

This is simply wrong. A large number of users report very god battery life.
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So 3 hours minimum is what you are saying that is shocking !

High CPU/GPU utilisation and you are looking at 90W or more power draw. Even a legally maximal possible battery of 99.9Wh/h will only give you an hour battery life.

If you are using efficient software? In day to day work, 8+ hours is more then achievable.

 

[Populus]

According to NotebookChek, the new Kaby Lake 13" with Touch Bar lasts about 1 hour less than the 2016 model. I don't know if this will happen also to the non touch bar 13" or the 15" 2017 MBP.

 

[HiRez]

One thing that can have a big impact on battery life is the number of extensions you have installed. By that I mean background processes that control things like syncing for iCloud Drive, Google, Drive, Dropbox, etc. (I have all of these running), ChronoSync, iStatMenus, Adobe Updater, Team Viewer, Time Machine, color calibrators, browser ad blockers, and more. Some people will have few, if any, user-installed extensions, but some people use a lot of them. Many of those don't use a lot of CPU cycles (and thus battery) individually, but they add up.

When I started using iCloud Drive, there was a bug where 2 related processes (bird, cloudd) would go into runaway, continuous use. My MacBook Air at the time normally got about 5 hours of battery, but with this bug I was getting about an hour (with fans screaming and a lot of heat). Eventually it got fixed and stopped killing my battery, but the more extensions you have, the more danger you're in of having one of them "go rogue" or have some bug that negatively affects battery life (as well as other things like leaking memory).

 

[sphinx99]

I have both side by side, each is 1TB, top processor and the 460/560 GPU. My sense so far is that the Kaby Lake model seems to last very marginally longer with my "not pushing the machine much" use cases e.g. mainly web browsing and Netflix but I haven't tried a formal rundown test of any kind. 110 cycles on the '16 vs. ~12 cycles on the '17 so not much real experience yet and it could be entirely subjective. From my experience with these processors I would expect the '17 to have a slightly better life (~3%??) on very light duty cycles due to power efficiency vs. identical life at higher loads. It would be interesting for someone to do a side-by-side rundown test. The problem these days is that with sufficiently light loading, power consumption from other sources such as the display begin to dominate. Therefore just as a 10% more powerful CPU doesn't dramatically improve user experience when most workloads are I/O bound in some fashion, a 10% more efficient CPU doesn't significantly improve battery life.

I do believe that with latest software, both models have very solid life under light to moderate duty cycles vs. competitive products out there. (I don't believe the life is fantastic under heavy loads due to the reality of battery energy being down.)

 

[boast]

Reports show a few extra hours of battery life in video tests due to the hardware acceleration

 

[augustya]

Go buy a Dell 4K with 32GB of RAM, and then complain about battery life. Apple are consistently rated amongst the most powerful laptop to battery life. It is always a balance. If you want the most powerful machine imaginable then you'll get shocking battery life. If you want the longest battery life imaginable then you'll get shocking performance. With the MBP, you can get upwards of 10 hours, there is no minimum but it should manage at least 3 hours rendering at 100% CPU usage. Which is shockingly good.

If you are intending on rendering large files constantly off the battery then I'm sure you're probably aware that no battery short of a fusion reactor is going to provide 'adequate' battery life.

This is an excerpt from 9to5mac.com people have been greatly disappointed with the Kind of battery backup that they are getting !