How many hours of battery do you get?

[LarryJoe33]

Just curious on whether my expectations are too high or my model MBP is just a hog. I am interested in estimates under normal computing conditions. For me this is surfing the web, mail, maybe reading a word or excel doc. I keep everything on like BT, Wifi, etc. I keep my display at a normal brightness, nothing too bright. I get about 4 hours from full charge to 10% which is when I plug it in.

My specs are below. I am certainly the most interested in similar specs, but I wouldn't mind hearing how the new machines fair.

 

[impulse462]

During the usage you described I lose around 10% every hour which corresponds to around 9-10 hours. This is on a 15” though. If I watch hd video for long periods this might dip towards 9 hours. I actually haven’t tested the battery much with the dGPU but I think I’d get around 4-5 hours on maya or something.

I had a 13” 2017 tbMBP and I was getting like 6-7 hours with the same light usage which is pretty terrible honestly.

 

[gobikerider]

Just curious on whether my expectations are too high or my model MBP is just a hog. I am interested in estimates under normal computing conditions. For me this is surfing the web, mail, maybe reading a word or excel doc. I keep everything on like BT, Wifi, etc. I keep my display at a normal brightness, nothing too bright. I get about 4 hours from full charge to 10% which is when I plug it in.

My specs are below. I am certainly the most interested in similar specs, but I wouldn't mind hearing how the new machines fair.

Have you ever replaced the battery?

 

[LarryJoe33]

Have you ever replaced the battery?

Yes three times.

 

[duervo]

I got about three hours or so last night with mixed usage (web browsing, watched several YouTube videos, listened to some music, downloaded and installed ~100GB in Steam games, tested a few GPU intensive games for a couple minutes each, and downloaded ~36k emails.) Keep in mind, out of all that, most of the time was for just web browsing. Doesn’t take long to download 100GB these days.

The biggest drain seemed to be when the largest Steam game was installing for some reason (Pillars of Eternity.) Dropped about 15% during that install. CPU was averaging just under 750% in activity monitor until it finished installing. The fan even turned on! (Haven’t heard that thing in ages.)

This was not typical use for me. I had recently reinstalled MacOS and finally got around to those leftover bits. I probably would have gotten more runtime out of it if I had just used it as usual.

Mid-2012 15” Unibody, base model i7, stock drive replaced with a 500GB SSD, 16GB RAM, and 1TB HDD where the DVD drive used to be. Battery is still the original (currently at about 93% of original capacity, and I forget how many cycles it’s gone through, but it’s way below average as it usually sits on my desk, plugged in 24x7.)

Battery was at 97% when I decided to time it. 13% when I got bored, figured that was good enough, and plugged it back in. The process did remind me that I still had to reinstall iStat Menus though, so that was cool.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Yes three times.

And did you get apple to replace the battery or did you get some cheap knock off online??

 

[PBG4 Dude]

During the usage you described I lose around 10% every hour which corresponds to around 9-10 hours. This is on a 15” though. If I watch hd video for long periods this might dip towards 9 hours. I actually haven’t tested the battery much with the dGPU but I think I’d get around 4-5 hours on maya or something.

I had a 13” 2017 tbMBP and I was getting like 6-7 hours with the same light usage which is pretty terrible honestly.

I run Blender in my 2017 15” MBP and get roughly 3 hours on battery. I spend most of my time modeling and rendering. Kinda frustrated that dGPU rendering is so slow compared to CPU rendering. Thinking about snagging an eGPU to speed things up.

 

[LarryJoe33]

And did you get apple to replace the battery or did you get some cheap knock off online??

I guess technically two times:
1
Original Battery replaced with Amazon $60 battery that had solid reviews. At the time, I was new to Mac's and acquired this old machine from my son who is a college student and complained that the battery was an issue. I bought him a brand new MBP. I then started getting involved with the community here and did the battery, SSD and Memory. This battery (I put it back in) was OK. I expected more hours, but I lived with 4-5 hours. Recently it started to drain a lot on it's own and coconut returned a "service battery" and the % of design life dropped in the 70's.

2
So now 1.5 years later and much more educated on the machine and Mac's from this place, I ponder, do I put another $100 bucks into this aging machine? Do I do it right on the battery this time and hopefully will it make a difference? I decide I love the machine and it's just as fast as the new models. Would like a better display but I can live with the old tech display. I went to the Apple store and they didn't have it in stock and would have to order it after they did their diagnostics. I was impatient and didn't want to make two trips. I reached out here for recommendations on as close to or an actual OEM replacement. iFixit and OWC seem to be the choices. You know the rest of the story.

So yes, I went with a "cheapo" Amazon $60 battery and my query with this thread is to get some input on whether 4-5 hours can be improved or whether these machines are what they are in terms of battery drain.

Got it???

 

[leman]

Around 7-8 hours here normal working time (15" 2016 MBP).

 

[LarryJoe33]

I got about three hours or so last night with mixed usage (web browsing, watched several YouTube videos, listened to some music, downloaded and installed ~100GB in Steam games, tested a few GPU intensive games for a couple minutes each, and downloaded ~36k emails.) Keep in mind, out of all that, most of the time was for just web browsing. Doesn’t take long to download 100GB these days.

The biggest drain seemed to be when the largest Steam game was installing for some reason (Pillars of Eternity.) Dropped about 15% during that install. CPU was averaging just under 750% in activity monitor until it finished installing. The fan even turned on! (Haven’t heard that thing in ages.)

This was not typical use for me. I had recently reinstalled MacOS and finally got around to those leftover bits. I probably would have gotten more runtime out of it if I had just used it as usual.

Mid-2012 15” Unibody, base model i7, stock drive replaced with a 500GB SSD, 16GB RAM, and 1TB HDD where the DVD drive used to be. Battery is still the original (currently at about 93% of original capacity, and I forget how many cycles it’s gone through, but it’s way below average as it usually sits on my desk, plugged in 24x7.)

Battery was at 97% when I decided to time it. 13% when I got bored, figured that was good enough, and plugged it back in. The process did remind me that I still had to reinstall iStat Menus though, so that was cool.

Thanks so much for this, very helpful.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

I guess technically two times:
1
Original Battery replaced with Amazon $60 battery that had solid reviews. At the time, I was new to Mac's and acquired this old machine from my son who is a college student and complained that the battery was an issue. I bought him a brand new MBP. I then started getting involved with the community here and did the battery, SSD and Memory. This battery (I put it back in) was OK. I expected more hours, but I lived with 4-5 hours. Recently it started to drain a lot on it's own and coconut returned a "service battery" and the % of design life dropped in the 70's.

2
So now 1.5 years later and much more educated on the machine and Mac's from this place, I ponder, do I put another $100 bucks into this aging machine? Do I do it right on the battery this time and hopefully will it make a difference? I decide I love the machine and it's just as fast as the new models. Would like a better display but I can live with the old tech display. I went to the Apple store and they didn't have it in stock and would have to order it after they did their diagnostics. I was impatient and didn't want to make two trips. I reached out here for recommendations on as close to or an actual OEM replacement. iFixit and OWC seem to be the choices. You know the rest of the story.

So yes, I went with a "cheapo" Amazon $60 battery and my query with this thread is to get some input on whether 4-5 hours can be improved or whether these machines are what they are in terms of battery drain.

Got it???

It’s a tough one because that model got around 7-8 hours initially I think and a lot has changed software wise and cpu efficiency wise since then, and your use case constantly on apps, screen brightness, browser choice blah blah blah will also impact your battery life significantly 4-5 hours may be the best you’ll get.