I was on a camping trip for a week and did not have to charge it even once lol
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M2 MacBook Air or M1 Pro MacBook Pro 14” dilemma
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i was on a 4 day trip didnt even bring a charger, with use of several hours a day.. soooo nice!!!!
That is simply because battery counter in MacOS shows 99% when it actually has gone down from 100 to 94%. So thats why it seems like first 1% drop takes forever when battery is full.
Why should I care what someone with their specific workload gets battery life on their machines if they use it different way than I do mine? I was genuinely surprised of my MBP 14” battery life after I got mine and tried it myself. Obviously my use is not very demanding.
Also not sure why you worry so much about someone buying the latest and the greatest models at the time finding later on when new models come that they got shafted? If using the same analogy, I’m pretty sure if you now get the MBA M2 you find yourself ”shafted” next year when a lot improved MBA comes out with the M3 (3nm) CPU. You end up sitting on the fence for the rest of your life then. Anything you buy today, will be old in the near future (=within a year or so). And if you just wanna keep some machine for long time, it is about 5 years worth of OS updates you get, so that is anyway the max life expectancy of any newly released machine.
Yes.
Well, it all depends on how much you use it and do you let it go to sleep mode all the time. Someone claiming they get many days use on a single charge and claim using it full workdays, simply means that machine has been sitting in sleep mode huge part of that time. Realistically MBA or MBP with Apple Silicon gives you depending on your use and display brightness maybe around 14-15hrs give or take couple of hours at the best. Or you run something that uses CPU 100% and you burn battery down to 0% in couple of hours.
OK, I see. Feel free to contact them and say they are wrong. I believe there is comment section or even contact us option in their web page.
You realize that is with display at 100% brightness which has a huge impact on battery life? As you can see in their review they get much higher hours with 150nits in the same test.
But since you obviously seem to prefer MBA over MBP, why not just get one? If you are not happy with your MBP 14”, just return it if possible and get MBA M2. BTW, how much hours you get on battery with your typical use with your MBP 14”?
I don’t play games, so I have no idea.
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So that this would be informative for everyone, you should keep track of how many hours you have used your machine during that time where it has been actually doing something with the display on. Otherwise this kind of figures are too vague to get any impression of actual battery life. Just saying.
I take your word for this but I’d still say something is wrong with the battery meter or machine has been in sleep mode at some point when you did not watch it, since 6% battery use in 4 hours is hardly possible. Lets see the math behind my speculation. 6% divided by 4 = 1.5% percent of battery in 1 hours, right? So battery total capasity is 52.6W, so 1.5% of that is about 0.79 Watts. In Notebookcheck MBA M2 test they measured the lower IDLE power draw 1.87 watts. So in your case it would have used only about 42% of that without even being in IDLE mode but actually doing something. Again, I believe what you said but wanted to show my math why it made me wonder what happened. If you can get about 66.5 hours battery life on single charge (52.6W / 0.79W = about 66.5 hrs) with actively using the machine, then this is really excellent battery life.
LOL - funny, like I said, several hours a day - POINT IS, the air is a power king! 😆
Maybe the battery meter isn't calibrated correctly yet, who knows. I am quite sure the machine never went to sleep and the screen never shut off. I was running Amphetamine to make sure the machine stayed awake, and indeed when I returned, the screen was still on, the audio was going and the broadcast team was in the post-game program.
Yeah, but without actual hours this information is useless for someone trying to hear actual battery life hours.
I see. It would be intersting to see if it can run about 66 hours on one charge then from 100%>0%. Should be possible theoretially then. I myself just don’t think it should be possible,
It seems unlikely, I agree. But any laptop I have had in the past (and my current work laptop) couldn't stream four hours of video without needing to be charged. I got many additional hours out of the M2 Air on top of those first four before bothering to finally plug it in - not sure at what level, but probably around 30-40%.
So, regardless, the M2 Air's battery life is extremely impressive.
well, not everyone is into this "constant data" sometimes you have to live and enjoy your devices 🤪Yeah, but without actual hours this information is useless for someone trying to hear actual battery life hours.
Yeah, but that is too vague to be informative to anyone. I mean when I was getting my MBA M1 I read some people in this forum were saying the same where they claimed getting full days and days of use on single charge. Well, obviously I soon found out that in my normal light use it meant around 7-8% or so battery use per hour...
I was not buying those stories but I realize it might be hard for the people who are looking for the actual user experiences of certain machine they might not be familiar what to expect, to get completely wrong impression. Just saying.
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No reason for that. This has nothing to do with x86 CPU's, it is more like A14 vs A15 in phone CPU comparison, both are more than fast enough.
MBA M2 is Apple's best laptop for 90% of users but it's $300-400 overpriced. Apple dominates the laptop market and know they can raise the price on their best selling Macbook, the Macbook Air. Especially with their Mx line. Intel MBP gave me some serious headaches over the years and during college. I get the same vibes around the MBP 14".
I was at Costco yesterday and they had all of the models except the M2 MBP Pro.
They had the MBP M1 16, MBP 14, M2 MBA, M1 MBA. M1 MBP 13.
I gravitated towards the MBA M2.
I don't know if I want to keep the MBP 14" which I got for $1823 after taxes from Best Buy.
Or buy the MBA M2 512/16 from Apple for ~$1600. Or buy a M1 MBA 512/16..
Thoughts?
That's the dilemma.
I was at Costco yesterday and they had all of the models except the M2 MBP Pro.
They had the MBP M1 16, MBP 14, M2 MBA, M1 MBA. M1 MBP 13.
I gravitated towards the MBA M2.
I don't know if I want to keep the MBP 14" which I got for $1823 after taxes from Best Buy.
Or buy the MBA M2 512/16 from Apple for ~$1600. Or buy a M1 MBA 512/16..
Thoughts?
That's the dilemma.
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strange you get intel "vibes" from an M1 14" MBP, which is an excellent machine....no doubt the screen is MUCH better on the 14 MBP than the M2 AIR (have both) - the 14 form factor is better, screen just looks better (more saturation, brighter etc.) close yes... TO be fair as much as I love the Air, every air I have had after a few years starts to act wacky, no matter how powerful it is (beach balls, freezing up) etc. feels like a delicate flower.
I have a 16 inch m1 pro and thinking about getting an air as a secondary. I have all pro apple stuff with the best xdr screens, what are your thoughts on if switch back and forth with the air inferior screen and the pro?
the air is great for secondary, but do find myself craving the min led...
I use the Air as an ipad essentially... (since I dont like ipads).. grab and go!
how jarring is the difference? as I have mini led on my MacBook Pro and iPad Pro.the air is great for secondary, but do find myself craving the min led...
I use the Air as an ipad essentially... (since I dont like ipads).. grab and go!
From a 14? its not that noticeable.. although the air still feels small, maybe because its so thin?
This thread has started to get ridiculous with all the battery arguments. No two people use their computers exactly alike nor with the same software so arguing about it is a giant waste of time. The Apple tax on upgrades is where most of the dilemma lies. If you don't get the educational discount then to get 16GB of RAM and a 512GB hard drive on the MBA 2 puts you only $100.00 less than the base 14" MBP with the recent Best Buy and Amazon sales. The MBP has more ports an overall faster chip and a much better screen. These are facts not opinions. The MBA 2 has more colors and is much lighter - again facts. I am typing this on a mid 2014 15" MBP that works perfectly fine but can't run the latest Mac OS and cooks my leg because of the way I use it - sitting in a gaming chair, feet up on my desk with the MBP on my lap. I'm tired of the leg cook and feel like it's time. I really like the MBA 2 form factor and if it had the same screen as the MBP, I would have already ordered one. The screen is where I hesitate. I have a 77" LGCX OLED and hate the dark gray blacks on IPS screens. They are immediately noticeable to anyone used to an OLED. The mini LED screens on the 14" and 16" Pro's are much better with close to OLED blacks. With all the rumors flying about M2 MBP's I have debated whether to just wait. I'm going to make a decision Thursday one way or another. Currently leaning toward a MBP because of the sale prices and knowing I don't even need the full power of the M1 Pro, so why wait for a M2 Pro that will cost more.
James
James
Nice overview and yes agree on battery, i have not had any issues with my 14. You did forget ONE big difference and it is BIG! The speakers on the 14 are killer! They suck IMO on the M2 Air. You are correct the MBP screen is just far superior. Thats why I am sure i am the only one with both the 14 MBP and base M2 Air LOL! Long story.......