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Just bought the 2016 MBP 15" and WOW!

thesaint024 said:
I know you weren't referring to me, but I used the word "bizarre". I get about 7-9 hours with my "normal usage", stretched longer if needed. On the 15", I suppose it's conceivable to get a 2-17 hour variance. You could open a huge word file and just read for 17 hours. And then you could do some 4k editing with CPU and dGPU running full throttle for 2 hours. I've not come close to either end of that range, but I guess it's possible. The thing I find strange about their conclusions is that the MBP battery was too "inconsistent" to be recommended. These skylakes (and dGPU combination) will run high and low in the name of efficiency, giving us smaller footprint, etc. I would think they would have to give a no go to all skylake laptops because that's what the chip will do, maybe not to that degree, but wide variance nevertheless. My XPS had crazy swings too, but I understood that was the chip. Is CR's conclusion that other laptops are able to constrain the battery usage so that battery life stays within a certain band using the same skylakes?

I am not saying that these batteries (and chip combo) are without issue. They definitely require care and understanding. But not to the degree that they are just unusable. It's just a strange result they came to. Not to speak for Apple, but that probably also piqued their interest aside from the bad PR of course. No I'm not defending, I am just as curious as to how they concluded what they did, based on my month of experience.
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My point in all of this is that we will find out more information from Apple, CR or both... Until that time, I'll refrain from adding to the discussion.
 
dgdosen said:
Well, are those tests "bad"? That might be your feeling. Might the hardware management be an issue? I think it's prudent to wait for Apple or CR to follow up with these issues (real or perceived). I'm sure we'll find out soon. It's in Apple's interest to do so.
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I own the machines. They work as expected.

If someone else says they saw one in a store that sprayed peanut butter in their eyes, what can I do or say? If CR says they got between 2 and 17 hours....well, that's for CR for you!

I deal with facts and I'm typing on a new tMBP at this very moment. The battery is at 65.6% with 5:12 remaining. Display is 4 clicks below max and keyboard is light is at max. BT is on.

Those are the facts. I'm really not interested in 2nd or 3rd hand news, when I have the facts in front of me. If an issue turns up with the new machines that I actually OWN, I'll cry loud and clear. Until then there's no doubt that this is best laptop from Apple yet.



R.
 
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CaptRB said:
bobb-jpg.681776
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With light Facebook use, as your screenshot reveals, I do not doubt it may last for hours.
 
doitdada said:
With light Facebook use, as your screenshot reveals, I do not doubt it may last for hours.
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My screen shot reveals very little of what's going on. If I run Lightroom, and pump 4K video to my Dell monitor I will get 5-6 hours. If I play Bioshock it will drain in a few hours and run its fans. If I'm writing using Final Draft, it will last 7-10 hours.

This is the same as my 2015 rMBP 15". Type of usage dictates battery life. Pretty simple stuff.

My friend is using the 15" tMBP and he's running Final Cut Pro with the same kind of battery life he got from previous machines.

What happened to "refraining from adding to the discussion." ???

Gets some facts and experience and then share your experiences. Right now you're not adding anything of your own.




R.
 
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CaptRB said:
My screen shot reveals very little of what's going on. If I run Lightroom, and pump 4K video to my Dell monitor I will get 5-6 hours. If I play Bioshock it will drain in a few hours and run its fans. If I'm writing using Final Draft, it will last 7-10 hours.

This is the same as my 2015 rMBP 15". Type of usage dictates battery life. Pretty simple stuff.

My friend is using the 15" tMBP and he's running Final Cut Pro with the same kind of battery life he got from previous machines.

What happened to "refraining from adding to the discussion." ???

Gets some facts and experience and then share your experiences. Right now you're not adding anything of your own.




R.
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I read an article about the 2016's battery life, this is what it had to say:

"Compared to last year’s models, the Touch Bar MacBook Pros lose quite a bit of battery capacity. The 13-inch model drops from 74.9 WHr to 49.2 WHr and the 15-inch model falls from 99.5 WHr to 76 WHr. That’s a 34 percent and 24 percent reduction in capacity, respectively.

If you reduce the size of the battery and you don’t want to totally tank battery life, you need to find power savings elsewhere. The CPU and GPU and the display are the biggest possible areas of savings since they’re going to draw more power than components elsewhere in the system, and Apple says that it has reduced the power consumption of the screen by about 30 percent.

The problem is that this isn’t the same as a system-wide 30 percent power reduction, which is roughly what you’d need to make up for the capacity loss in both systems. The issue for Apple is that 2016’s Intel Skylake processors use around the same amount of power as 2015’s Broadwell processors used in the last 13-inch Pro and only a little bit less than 2013’s Haswell CPUs that were still used in the 15-inch Pro."

This is probably why people are experiencing worse battery life, no? Here's the full article btw:

http://arstechnica.co.uk/apple/2016/12/new-macbook-pro-battery-life-issues/
 
blindpacemaker said:
I read an article about the 2016's battery life, this is what it had to say:

"Compared to last year’s models, the Touch Bar MacBook Pros lose quite a bit of battery capacity. The 13-inch model drops from 74.9 WHr to 49.2 WHr and the 15-inch model falls from 99.5 WHr to 76 WHr. That’s a 34 percent and 24 percent reduction in capacity, respectively.

If you reduce the size of the battery and you don’t want to totally tank battery life, you need to find power savings elsewhere. The CPU and GPU and the display are the biggest possible areas of savings since they’re going to draw more power than components elsewhere in the system, and Apple says that it has reduced the power consumption of the screen by about 30 percent.

The problem is that this isn’t the same as a system-wide 30 percent power reduction, which is roughly what you’d need to make up for the capacity loss in both systems. The issue for Apple is that 2016’s Intel Skylake processors use around the same amount of power as 2015’s Broadwell processors used in the last 13-inch Pro and only a little bit less than 2013’s Haswell CPUs that were still used in the 15-inch Pro."

This is probably why people are experiencing worse battery life, no? Here's the full article btw:

http://arstechnica.co.uk/apple/2016/12/new-macbook-pro-battery-life-issues/
Click to expand...
CPU, GPU, and screen are definitely the primary sources of battery drain. The battery is smaller. Yes, those are facts. But the MBP is able to definitely run at lower watts for light tasks. I know this simply from the math of battery size and my ability to use it for a certain amount of time. Myself and many others get the claimed battery or close to it, and I'm not particularly going gentle. I have lots of apps running in the background and I do pretty normal things. Different apps and processes are using power differently for people. The combinations of this or that give us different battery life. However, back to your point, the total system is able to make up the decrease in battery size with lower power consumption. I don't know how this voodoo works, but it does. There's also a lower floor as a result. Without raw battery size, higher power apps or processes will use more battery as a percentage because it is smaller. I don't deny physics.

The big mystery in all of this is why certain processes use high power unnecessarily. That's what the battery thread and many of us try to problem solve. I'm not going to complain if I get 3 hours doing a massive data compilation in Access because I know that uses CPU, or jacking up brightness to 100%. But doing my normal "productivity" tasks, it gets me close enough to claimed. I also found stupid websites or streaming that hog energy. I factor that into how long my battery will last if I use those things. Yeah, I'm puzzled by what people are doing that gives very different battery life. Definitely need Apple to either update their software (especially Safari) or do some explaining on the variances.
 
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thesaint024 said:
CPU, GPU, and screen are definitely the primary sources of battery drain. The battery is smaller. Yes, those are facts. But the MBP is able to definitely run at lower watts for light tasks. I know this simply from the math of battery size and my ability to use it for a certain amount of time. Myself and many others get the claimed battery or close to it, and I'm not particularly going gentle. I have lots of apps running in the background and I do pretty normal things. Different apps and processes are using power differently for people. The combinations of this or that give us different battery life. However, back to your point, the total system is able to make up the decrease in battery size with lower power consumption. I don't know how this voodoo works, but it does. There's also a lower floor as a result. Without raw battery size, higher power apps or processes will use more battery as a percentage because it is smaller. I don't deny physics.

The big mystery in all of this is why certain processes use high power unnecessarily. That's what the battery thread and many of us try to problem solve. I'm not going to complain if I get 3 hours doing a massive data compilation in Access because I know that uses CPU, or jacking up brightness to 100%. But doing my normal "productivity" tasks, it gets me close enough to claimed. I also found stupid websites or streaming that hog energy. I factor that into how long my battery will last if I use those things. Yeah, I'm puzzled by what people are doing that gives very different battery life. Definitely need Apple to either update their software (especially Safari) or do some explaining on the variances.
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Really interesting, thank you.
 
They have all the people working on next iPhone, watch bands and new emojis.

Its obvious very little testing was done on the MacOS and Bootcamp side. The blown speakers in Bootcamp should have been caught and fixed in testing. All they did for Bootcamp was to limit the speaker volume in Windows to really low levels.
 
I just placed an order for the previous generation MBP-15. The only reason is because of USB-C and dongles.
I don't hate the new machine but it's definitely not my thing.


accentaudio said:
I agree. Can you tell me why there is such hatred and disdain for it thought? I just did a Google search for 2016 MacBook Pro and it was page after page of hatred...? I am so confused. What exactly is it that people are so disappointed about?
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Finally got my 5k monitor a couple of days ago. Left a verdict of it in the Lg 5k owners thread

31508839923_1736acfcbd_h.jpg
 
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With news of the new (and potentially much better) MBP coming out this year, someone needs to start the thread titled: "I just returned my 2016 macbook pro, and WOW ... do I feel better!"
 
robeddie said:
With news of the new (and potentially much better) MBP coming out this year, someone needs to start the thread titled: "I just returned my 2016 macbook pro, and WOW ... do I feel better!"
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Should get some extended battery life with Kaby Lake, and some better video processing for some high-end streaming. Will be interesting to see what else they can come up with for the equivalent MBPs.

Will also be interesting to see what a 32-GB MBP would be like. Will take a hit on the battery, may be larger and heavier. And pricier!
 
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