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MBP 13" 2018 TouchBar Battery

B

Benkers

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 2, 2018
9
4
Canary Wharf, London, United Kingdom
Hey everyone,

I recently purchased a MacBook Pro 13" 16GB RAM 256GB SSD i7 2.7 GHz with the touchbar and I am a little curious whether my battery is under performing or whether this is how it is. Prior to this Mac, I had a 2015 13" Retina Mac and I recall getting longer out of that.

I have been working for around 5 hours currently and have 35% left. I am using Chrome (4-6 tabs open), MS Outlook (closed, but not quit), MS Word (4 documents open) and Preview open (split screen with a 12 page word document, Preview PDF is 19). I have Bluetooth turned off, brightness is auto (a quarter of the way up currently) and that's it.

I'm also working on a flat surface and haven't heard the fan kick in at all.

Have read reviews online and people are saying it can last around 8 hours when watching YouTube (I'm just using Chrome and word processing really).

How long is everyone else getting? Am I missing something? I don't really think I'm doing too much!

Thanks everyone!
 
Chrome is a major battery hog, I've found. I don't know if it was idle for much of that time, but Outlook might be keeping it from sleeping if it was.
 
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Jeff_42 said:
Chrome is a major battery hog, I've found. I don't know if it was idle for much of that time, but Outlook might be keeping it from sleeping if it was.
Click to expand...
Ahh, thank you!

I use Chrome because it syncs very well with my Windows PCs around the place. However, I will try Safari and see if this does improve battery since I can sync bookmarks. I've had a read online and many others have said that too!

Thanks again.
 
I typically find my battery goes down by about 10% an hour. I use safari and not chrome. I generally have something like 3 safari windows with 4-5 tabs each, MS word, powerpoint, slack, preview, mail, etc. open all the time - mostly working in Word or powerpoint. I've heard that chrome uses more energy. After you've switched to safari for a while, you should come back and report if it really made much of a difference.
 
tamara6 said:
I typically find my battery goes down by about 10% an hour. I use safari and not chrome. I generally have something like 3 safari windows with 4-5 tabs each, MS word, powerpoint, slack, preview, mail, etc. open all the time - mostly working in Word or powerpoint. I've heard that chrome uses more energy. After you've switched to safari for a while, you should come back and report if it really made much of a difference.
Click to expand...
Thanks very much for your message!

I tend to use my Mac much more during the week, so will try Safari for this week and then report back! My main applications during the week tend to be MS Outlook, Chrome (however will start to try using Safari), MS Word, Skype for Business, iMessage and Spotify. These tend to always be open and most have multiple windows open.

Do you shut down your Mac at the end of each day or do you close the lid and let it sleep?

Thanks again for the message!
 
I just put it to sleep. My MBP is fairly new (only 3 weeks old), but I think I've only shut it down once while I've owned it.

I don't use Skype, but I do use FaceTime and Zoom, and they both eat up battery (talking about video conferences, not just audio). I can't remember the details, but I want to say my last hour long zoom call took something like 25-30% of my battery. But I also don't just leave them open when I'm not talking with someone, so I don't know how much they take when just "idle."

You can see how much energy each app is using by using the Activity Monitor (which is in Applications -> Utilities). Click on the energy tab and then sort by energy impact or average energy impact to see what sorts of energy resources each app is using (or has used historically).
 
tamara6 said:
I just put it to sleep. My MBP is fairly new (only 3 weeks old), but I think I've only shut it down once while I've owned it.

I don't use Skype, but I do use FaceTime and Zoom, and they both eat up battery (talking about video conferences, not just audio). I can't remember the details, but I want to say my last hour long zoom call took something like 25-30% of my battery. But I also don't just leave them open when I'm not talking with someone, so I don't know how much they take when just "idle."

You can see how much energy each app is using by using the Activity Monitor (which is in Applications -> Utilities). Click on the energy tab and then sort by energy impact or average energy impact to see what sorts of energy resources each app is using (or has used historically).
Click to expand...

Ahh ok. Likewise, I only sleep mine but tend to shut it down after each week since I have all my work open during the week. Funnily enough, I've only had mine for about three weeks as well.

I use Skype for Business for conferences (typically only audio), IMs and usually keep it open since I have to respond to IMs but I don't think it uses too much power.

I have setup Safari ready to use for the week so let's hope I can see some battery improvement!
 
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