Does running the RMBP at a lower resolution improve battery life?

[Yinmay]

Question for the lucky ones out there who have already received their Retina MBP: does running at 1440*900 instead of 2880*1800 improve battery life? By how much?

Thanks.

 

[GGJstudios]

Question for the lucky ones out there who have already received their Retina MBP: does running at 1440*900 instead of 2880*1800 improve battery life? By how much?

I would expect that if it does impact battery life, the impact is negligible. Screen brightness is a much bigger issue. There are many factors that impact your battery life. See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details, including tips on how to maximize your battery life.

This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions:

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ​

 

[funnoam]

When running at 2880*1800, the laptop use less power because downscaling is disabled. In 1440*900, the graphics card render the screen at 2880*1800, before downscaling to fit your retina display.

 

[Yinmay]

Thanks a lot. Has anyone been able to run tests and find out how much difference we're talking? something significant like 6h vs 9, or negligible such as 7 vs 7:30?

 

[bryne]

When running at 2880*1800, the laptop use less power because downscaling is disabled. In 1440*900, the graphics card render the screen at 2880*1800, before downscaling to fit your retina display.

All the display resolutions on the RMBP are 2x'ed first and then downscaled, which is why the scaling at non-native res looks so good - ie, the 1920x1200 res is actually being output by the video card at 3840x2400. You won't get any power savings from changing the resolution on this laptop.