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Just bought a new retina - only 5.30 hours battery time!!

S

stolpioni

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 19, 2013
16
0
Hi,

Today I purchased a brand new MacBook Pro Retina (13 inch).

My battery is loaded to 100% but it says that I only have 5 hours and 36 minutes left on my battery.

It says 7 hours on Apple's website!

Why is this?

I've tried to lower the brightness on the screen, but same thing..

EDIT: After posting this thread, the battery is now down to 5:12.
 
If you just bought it, I would give it a few days at least to break in

Also, there are so many variables that affect battery life
While screen brightness is definitely one, there are many others relating to usage and settings

The posted values by Apple are generalizations, not guarantees
 
What and how many apps do you have open? What kind of use/work do you do on it?
 
I just opened it up..have no apps or programs running at all.

Settings: Have no idea, I haven't touched a thing though...so it should be set to normal.
 
My new 13" rMBP doesn't get a ton of battery time before it's down to 30%. I'm using Wi-Fi all the time, have a weather app running all the time, and have the screen brightness turned up to about 75%. Most of my usage is as a remote desktop connected to my office (which runs a Windows app), so that might explain why I'm probably getting the same battery time as you. Apple is probably basing their estimates on much more mixed use, and 50% brightness.
 
stolpioni said:
I just opened it up..have no apps or programs running at all.

Settings: Have no idea, I haven't touched a thing though...so it should be set to normal.
Click to expand...

There is always something running, even if you don't see it. Follow every step of the following instructions precisely. Do not skip any steps.
  1. Launch Activity Monitor
  2. Change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes"
  3. Click on the "% CPU" column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top). (If that column isn't visible, right-click on the column headings and check it, NOT "CPU Time")
  4. Click on the System Memory tab at the bottom.
  5. Take a screen shot of the entire Activity Monitor window, then scroll down to see the rest of the list, take another screen shot
  6. Post your screenshots.

There are many factors that impact your battery life, and your "time remaining" indication is an ever-changing estimate, based on the current workload of your system. It will fluctuate up and down from minute to minute as your power demands change. It is not perfectly accurate, but only an estimate.

See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details, including tips on how to maximize your battery life.
​
The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.
 
Last edited:
GGJstudios said:
There is always something running, even if you don't see it. Follow every step of the following instructions precisely. Do not skip any steps.
  1. Launch Activity Monitor
  2. Change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes"
  3. Click on the "% CPU" column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top). (If that column isn't visible, right-click on the column headings and check it, NOT "CPU Time")
  4. Click on the System Memory tab at the bottom.
  5. Take a screen shot of the entire Activity Monitor window, then scroll down to see the rest of the list, take another screen shot
  6. Post your screenshots.

There are many factors that impact your battery life, and your "time remaining" indication is an ever-changing estimate, based on the current workload of your system. It will fluctuate up and down from minute to minute as your power demands change. It is not perfectly accurate, but only an estimate.

See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details, including tips on how to maximize your battery life.
​
The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.
Click to expand...

Thanks for helping!

It was a pretty big list, so took three screenshots to get it all:

http://postimg.org/image/sbvj4zjch/

http://postimg.org/image/s1v4xt7jj/

http://postimg.org/image/7we56gu8d/
 
Don't assume that the estimate will be the real battery life. Also, you just bought the thing. And battery life will also vary depending upon what you do with it.
 
Even though it already was 100%, I just charged the battery a bit more.
Now it's up to 7:30!! :cool:

Thanks for your help. Apparently it solved itself.
 
stolpioni said:
Thanks for helping!

It was a pretty big list, so took three screenshots to get it all:
Click to expand...
As you can see from the list, there are always processes running on your Mac. There's nothing in those processes that stands out as a major consumer of system resources at the time of the screen shot. However, take a look at the Battery FAQ I posted for tips on improving battery life. Apple doesn't guarantee you will get 7 hours on a charge. They say "up to 7 hours". Their estimates are based on very specific conditions. If your conditions vary from those used by Apple during testing, you should expect to get different results.
stolpioni said:
Even though it already was 100%, I just charged the battery a bit more.
Now it's up to 7:30!! :cool:

Thanks for your help. Apparently it solved itself.
Click to expand...

Your battery won't charge beyond 100%. Once the battery is fully charged, it stops charging and runs on AC power. The difference in time remaining is because the workload changes constantly, as previously stated, and therefore your estimated time remaining will constantly change.

I highly recommend you read the Battery FAQ that I posted, as it will answer most or all of your battery related questions.
 
RedllowFenix said:
Do this!

I recommend trying all 3 of these suggestions. Resetting the SMC and PRAM worked for me. I'm now getting 8 hours.

Reset PRAM
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
Click to expand...

PRAM/NVRAM has nothing to do with battery/power/charging issues. Resetting it will not help. Only resetting the SMC addresses such issues, and resetting the SMC is not needed in this situation, since it has no effect whatsoever on battery life. The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.
 
stolpioni said:
Even though it already was 100%, I just charged the battery a bit more.
Now it's up to 7:30!! :cool:

Thanks for your help. Apparently it solved itself.
Click to expand...

You should understand that the battery life estimate is dynamically updated depending on your current power usage.

Your battery holds a charge C (in units of Watt-hours, to make it simpler), and consumers power at a rate P (in units of Watts). Your estimated battery life is calculated by the OS as

battery life estimate = C/P

If you watch a youtube video, or do some other computationally intensive tasks, your power consumption P increases, so the battery life estimate decreases.

A lot of things are more battery intensive than one might think. As mentioned above, watching videos is somewhat demanding, same goes for flash games (facebook) or just flash heavy websites. Some people also claim that browsers like Chrome increase battery use. Then of course there are the usual heavy hitters like playing actual games, video editing and encoding etc that will eat your battery in 1-2 hours.
 
GGJstudios said:
There is always something running, even if you don't see it. Follow every step of the following instructions precisely. Do not skip any steps.
  1. Launch Activity Monitor
  2. Change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes"
  3. Click on the "% CPU" column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top). (If that column isn't visible, right-click on the column headings and check it, NOT "CPU Time")
  4. Click on the System Memory tab at the bottom.
  5. Take a screen shot of the entire Activity Monitor window, then scroll down to see the rest of the list, take another screen shot
  6. Post your screenshots.

There are many factors that impact your battery life, and your "time remaining" indication is an ever-changing estimate, based on the current workload of your system. It will fluctuate up and down from minute to minute as your power demands change. It is not perfectly accurate, but only an estimate.

See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details, including tips on how to maximize your battery life.
​
The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.
Click to expand...

Step1: Get a pencil and paper
Step2: Write down time using items from step1
Step3: Use your mac until it dies
Step4: Immediately repeat step 2
Step5: Subtract time in step2 from step4

How do I get a sticky for this?
 
See the link to the Anandtech review below. Your pace sounds about right if under a medium workload.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6409/13inch-retina-macbook-pro-review/11

I just bought a 13" rMBP base model yesterday and am starting to put it through the paces and track actual battery life. I charged it to 100% and track my real time use vs % remaining. I'll report back later tonight with where it is at. But after about 20% used, I am pacing at just over 5 hours as well.
 
I found that it took a few battery cycles for my battery to actually seem decent. If anyone worries about it, I would just go through a few days unplugged and see if it gets better.
 
dmk1974 said:
See the link to the Anandtech review below. Your pace sounds about right if under a medium workload.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6409/13inch-retina-macbook-pro-review/11

I just bought a 13" rMBP base model yesterday and am starting to put it through the paces and track actual battery life. I charged it to 100% and track my real time use vs % remaining. I'll report back later tonight with where it is at. But after about 20% used, I am pacing at just over 5 hours as well.
Click to expand...

Here's my test results:

1680x1050 resolution
12/2 dots (screen brightness/keyboard backlight)
Chrome, Mail, iMessage, Dropbox
12 dots/2 dots/no contrast boost

234 minutes, 76% used
5:08 pace
 
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