Macbook Pro 13 2017 vs 2015 battery

[project_2501]

Which has longer battery life - the 2017 macbook pro 13 without touchbar or the 2015 macbook pro 13, both with i5 CPUs.

Concensus seems to be that the touchbar version has reduced battery life, partyly due to a smaller battery .. see link:

https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/macbook-pro-touch-bar-battery-life

 

[project_2501]

Which has longer battery life - the 2017 macbook pro 13 without touchbar or the 2015 macbook pro 13, both with i5 CPUs.

Concensus seems to be that the touchbar version has reduced battery life, partyly due to a smaller battery .. see link:

https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/macbook-pro-touch-bar-battery-life

I spoke to 3 staff at Covent Garden London Apple Store and none could help with these questions.

I asked at an official reseller (Albion) also on London. Again no clue.

They all deny the battery size is smaller in the TB version, and can't estimate difference on daily endurance. They keep referring to that fact they've not been trained to say anything on this.

Grrr! Apple can be too secretive...

 

[TonyK]

Look at this article comparing a 2015 MBP to a 2016 MBP TB.

https://www.cultofmac.com/457294/2016-macbook-pro-with-touch-bar-vs-2015-macbook-pro/

Also, there are reasons why estimating battery life is difficult. First, each person's use of the computer will be different than someone else's. They can give estimates based on some predetermined use but it is at best a guesstimate.

The difference in both processor makes and speeds can impact battery life. How much I don't know because it doesn't, on average, matter to me.

In the past week, on my 2015 MBP with 16GB of memory and 1TB SSD got over 6 hours before I broke over and charged the battery. While most of it was spent reading the web, email or reading an eBook, some of it was spent doing online banking and then backing up to TimeMachine wirelessly, then backing up to a bus powered 4TB USB3 drive and finally another backup of data only to a 128GB USB3 thumbdrive. Those drives can suck power and the WiFi was always sucking power. The system estimated I had about another 45 minutes of power left when I opted to charge.

So read the article at the link above and then see if someone has done an updated article for a comparison between the 2016 and 2017 models. What this gets you is a comparison of a non-TB system to a TB system using I think comparable processors though the speeds are different; then a comparison between the older processor and newer processor models.

Update: Added a 2nd link: https://9to5mac.com/2017/03/31/which-macbook-pro-battery-life-consumer-reports/

Take care,

 

[zedsdead]

The nTB version without a doubt has better battery life than the TB model since it’s processor is lower power (MBA style chipset) and it has a bigger battery. Gets roughly 1-2 hours more. Plenty of threads on this.

As far as the 2015 model goes, the rMBP design has a much bigger battery, so when under heavy loads or tasks the older machines will last longer because the Broadwell (2015) models draw similar power as the recent machines. Since the recent machines have smaller batteries, they die quicker (when under intensive tasks, when under light usage battery life is similar). This is one of the main reasons the battery issues were so prominent last year.