Disappointed with M3 Air Battery Life

[aliennerd]

I've had a new 15" M3 Air for about a month now and I'm really disappointed with the battery life. It's in bog standard configuration, no additional software installed and have it set on Lower Power Mode Always.

I run the screen brightness at about 60% and I'm getting about 8-10 hours battery life just using Safari, Pages, Mail and Messages.

Does this seem normal to you? When I had my M1 MacBook I hardly ever seemed to be recharging it but with the Air it seems to catch me out.

 

[za9ra22]

Seems a bit low to me. Mine - also about a month old, runs about 14 hours as far as I've noticed.

I generally have it set about 40% brightness, which is fine for my use, and it's almost constantly active, but I have got into the habit of putting it on charge for an hour or so every day, simply because that fits my needs, and is reasonably good for exercising the battery.

It seems marginally better battery life than my M1 Air, but not a whole lot different.

 

[krspkbl]

That doesn't seem right. Apple advertises up to 18 hours for watching Apple TV or 15 hours web browsing while at a screen brightness of 8 clicks. Unless you've got loads of heavy page tabs open in Safari or running something big in Pages I don't see what can be sucking up the battery.

What does it say in battery settings? Is it reporting as normal/100% ?

What does activity monitor say is using battery?

Mines has great battery life but I'm not a heavy user. Safari (maybe 3-4 tabs open at most), maybe leaving Mail open, the odd reply to messages, some basic excel sheets (to track money and movies/games/books), streaming Spotify, or watching youtube/movies either stored or streamed. I haven't even charged my Air to 100% but I regularly see 15-19 hours reported in activity monitor. I always stop charging at ~80% and charge when its at 20%. My screen brightness is usually low since I only really use at home and at night to watch movies in bed.

 

[aliennerd]

That doesn't seem right. Apple advertises up to 18 hours for watching Apple TV or 15 hours web browsing while at a screen brightness of 8 clicks. Unless you've got loads of heavy page tabs open in Safari or running something big in Pages I don't see what can be sucking up the battery.

What does it say in battery settings? Is it reporting as normal/100% ?

What does activity monitor say is using battery?

Mines has great battery life but I'm not a heavy user. Safari (maybe 3-4 tabs open at most), maybe leaving Mail open, the odd reply to messages, some basic excel sheets (to track money and movies/games/books), streaming Spotify, or watching youtube/movies either stored or streamed. I haven't even charged my Air to 100% but I regularly see 15-19 hours reported in activity monitor. I always stop charging at ~80% and charge when its at 20%. My screen brightness is usually low since I only really use at home and at night to watch movies in bed.

I've really only been using Safari with two or three light tabs open, nothing taxing. Currently says 40% battery remaining which equates to 3 hrs 46mins. I think something is wrong.

 

[za9ra22]

I've been on battery on my 15-inch M3 since 9am, constantly working and moving data, and it's now 6.30pm. Battery is 70%. I've been downloading and processing video most of the day, and uploading the results to my Kodi media box.

This seems reasonable to me, but your outline of activity vs battery drain doesn't.

 

[joeblow7777]

Seems low. I tend to keep my display dimmer than most (usually around 50%) and I don't do anything too taxing, but I'd say that Apple's claim of 15-18 hours seems accurate for me. I can go 2-3 days before draining the battery.

 

[aliennerd]

I'm going to do a full charge, set the brightness to exactly half and create a 20 hr playlist on Youtube and just leave it running with no other Apps open to see how long it lasts.

 

[h.gilbert]

I think it's because screen brightness plays a much bigger part in battery consumption than what you're perhaps used to with the older intel models? I assume that now with the Apple silicon chips being so efficient the screen takes up a larger % of total power consumption, so just going from 50% to 60% brightness will give quite different battery remaining estimates.

On my M1 Air, while watching a YT video in Chrome, I just changed from 75% brightness to 50% and my time remaining went from 3h to 4h at 36% charge.

 

[jdb8167]

I think it's because screen brightness plays a much bigger part in battery consumption than what you're perhaps used to with the older intel models? I assume that now with the Apple silicon chips being so efficient the screen takes up a larger % of total power consumption, so just going from 50% to 60% brightness will give quite different battery remaining estimates.

On my M1 Air, while watching a YT video in Chrome, I just changed from 75% brightness to 50% and my time remaining went from 3h to 4h at 36% charge.

On my 13" M3 MacBook Air at 1/2 brightness and mostly idle (though several applications are running):
Discharging with -3.596 Watts

At 3/4 brightness:
Discharging with -4.485 Watts

At full brightness:
Discharging with -7.596 Watts

The 13" M3 MBA has a 52.6-watt‑hour battery. That means the change from 1/2 to 3/4 is going to cost about 3 hours of battery and going from 1/2 to full is going to cost about 7 hours. This is for the screen size and battery in the 13" though so the numbers are going to vary for the larger screen 15" with a larger battery.

 

[StoneJack]

make brightness 40-50%.
To ensure good results, reboot and reinstall OS (or reset)

 

[aliennerd]

I think it's because screen brightness plays a much bigger part in battery consumption than what you're perhaps used to with the older intel models? I assume that now with the Apple silicon chips being so efficient the screen takes up a larger % of total power consumption, so just going from 50% to 60% brightness will give quite different battery remaining estimates.

On my M1 Air, while watching a YT video in Chrome, I just changed from 75% brightness to 50% and my time remaining went from 3h to 4h at 36% charge.

This appears to be it, small increases in screen brightness seem to make a huge difference. Unfortunately in the environment I work in I need to run it at 60-70% which equates to about 8-9 hours battery life. To get anywhere near 18 hrs I think I'd have to run at about 30-40%.

 

[Blackened22]

I noticed this too, Apple advertised hours are laughable. I came from 13 MBP M2, I use screen at 80-100% brightness most of the time, MBA M3 drains quickly. Haven't done precise test, but surprised me that it went from 87% to 30% in 2h or so by watching YT (CPU at 15-20% the most). Still new, battery may improve little bit after few cycles.

make brightness 40-50%.
To ensure good results, reboot and reinstall OS (or reset)

Are you serious, how can you use MBA at 50%, especially during daytime. I almost never use below 80%, only at night I use 60-70%

 

[h.gilbert]

This appears to be it, small increases in screen brightness seem to make a huge difference. Unfortunately in the environment I work in I need to run it at 60-70% which equates to about 8-9 hours battery life. To get anywhere near 18 hrs I think I'd have to run at about 30-40%.

I noticed this too, Apple advertised hours are laughable. I came from 13 MBP M2, I use screen at 80-100% brightness most of the time, MBA M3 drains quickly. Haven't done precise test, but surprised me that it went from 87% to 30% in 2h or so by watching YT (CPU at 15-20% the most). Still new, battery may improve little bit after few cycles.

Are you serious, how can you use MBA at 50%, especially during daytime. I almost never use below 80%, only at night I use 60-70%

Yeah, Apple's battery life claims come are for 50% brightness:

"The wireless web test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing 25 popular websites with display brightness set to 8 clicks from bottom. The Apple TV app movie playback test measures battery life by playing back HD 1080p content with display brightness set to 8 clicks from bottom."

I too find 50% brightness to dim for regular day use, unless I'm somewhere dark, so I never get anywhere near the stated battery life.

 

[BanjoDudeAhoy]

Are you serious, how can you use MBA at 50%, especially during daytime. I almost never use below 80%, only at night I use 60-70%

60-70% at night? :O That would probably hurt my eyes quite a bit.

I don't know what environment you're using your MBA in, but I only go above 50% brightness when the sun shines directly into my home office (which is only for a couple hours in the afternoon) or in a brightly lit public place like an airport.
My standard brightness is somewhere around 40%.

 

[Blackened22]

60-70% at night? :O That would probably hurt my eyes quite a bit.

I don't know what environment you're using your MBA in, but I only go above 50% brightness when the sun shines directly into my home office (which is only for a couple hours in the afternoon) or in a brightly lit public place like an airport.
My standard brightness is somewhere around 40%.

Yes, because at night I am in room with light. It is not good for eyes to look at laptop in dark, screen should always be similar brightness to the lighting in room/surroundings, otherwise too much contrast and eye strain.

I use at 100% brightness in room and on balcony especially - it is regular sunny daylight, brighter room. I could imagine in dark winter days it is ok lower, but I live in sunny area most of the year. Outside in restaurants, bars, I could use little bit brighter screen sometimes but 500Nits is alright mostly for everything except open sunlight.

 

[BanjoDudeAhoy]

Yes, because at night I am in room with light. It is not good for eyes to look at laptop in dark, screen should always be similar brightness to the lighting in room/surroundings, otherwise too much contrast and eye strain.

I use at 100% brightness in room and on balcony especially - it is regular sunny daylight, brighter room. I could imagine in dark winter days it is ok lower, but I live in sunny area most of the year. Outside in restaurants, bars, I could use little bit brighter screen sometimes but 500Nits is alright mostly for everything except open sunlight.

Ok, that makes sense. Seems like you're in much brighter environments than I am.
My office is never particularly brightly lit - except for those aforementioned afternoon hours.

 

[Blackened22]

Yes, M series chips can be pretty efficient power wise, especially in low-power-mode. This MBA M3 in LPM used only 6-7W at 100% load, normal mode is 22W or so - seems power consumption bottleneck is the screen. All the rest have small influence. Would be interesting in the next years if they worked on that, to get some low power bright screen