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MBP 14 battery sucks. Why?

Xolp

Xolp

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 15, 2021
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Do you think the result of the terrible battery life on the 14 MBP is pro motion? would turning it off help?

The regular M1 has up to 17 hours wireless web but the 14 only does 11 hours...

This is the only thing turning me off from purchasing

Thanks
 
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I think there are multiple factors.

First of all, the screen is much brighter and it seems like as, apple tested on half brightness (eight notches from the left).

So hopefully, you would be able to run it at 25% brightness and have the same brightness as the 13” inch MBP and get a bit more battery life.

The 13” also has 4 efficiency cores. But the 14” has only 2. So they traded battery for performance.

And of course the screen is higher resolution. So that would use more battery.

But to me that is also the biggest disappointment.

Other than that it’s a perfect laptop.
 
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Kimcha said:
I think there are multiple factors.

First of all, the screen is much brighter and it seems like as, apple tested on half brightness (eight notches from the left).

So hopefully, you would be able to run it at 25% brightness and have the same brightness as the 13” inch MBP and get a bit more battery life.

The 13” also has 4 efficiency cores. But the 14” has only 2. So they traded battery for performance.

And of course the screen is higher resolution. So that would use more battery.

But to me that is also the biggest disappointment.

Other than that it’s a perfect laptop.
Click to expand...

Thanks for clarifying! is this new display double the brightness of the previous 13 mbp? hopefully its enough for outside viewing.
 
Yes, the 13” MBP is 500 nits and the 14” can do sustained 1,000 nits and can go up to 1,600.

I am assuming that half brightness would therefore be 500 nits and therefore as bright as the 13” on full-brightness.

But I don’t think apple would compare the batteries in this way if it made a huge difference.

I’m sure they are aware of how this makes customers feel.
 
The M1 is touted for low power consumption (=better battery life), that’s why devices like the Mac Mini, Macbook Air and iPad will keep that line of the chip while the Pro/Max chips are more performance oriented. There’s also the new display to factor in as some have mentioned. This was bound to happen. I do agree that the battery numbers with 14” are a bit underwhelming. I’m curious to see if the M1 Pro/Max performance upgrade would really compensate. Will be on a lookout for a comparison between a 13” 16GB M1 MBP versus a base 14” 16GB M1 Pro MBP compares (man, the name ‘Macbook Pro with an M1 Pro’ just sounds so unnecessary 😂)
 
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The 14 inch MBP M1 Pro/Max has considerably less battery life than the 13 inch MBP M1, but let’s put things in perspective.

Last year the laptop design/internals were not changed (besides the chip). So we were comparing the difference between a MBP with an Intel vs M1 chip. The battery life was improved dramatically.

Now, we’re comparing a laptop with new design/internals and new features (higher brightness, promotion, etc) to last year’s laptop that lacks those and has really good battery life.

It is therefore important to assess whether one really needs the extra CPU but more importantly GPU performance that the 14 inch MBP M1 Pro/Max provides. If not one is probably better off with the 13 inch MBP M1 or Air M1.
 
I’m guessing the mini-LED screen has a larger power budget than the LED screen of older models.
 
More powerful machine = more power needed. Not difficult. A truck hauling10,00 pounds of dirt needs more fuel to move than a small two door sedan carrying 150lb people.
 
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Kimcha said:
Yes, the 13” MBP is 500 nits and the 14” can do sustained 1,000 nits and can go up to 1,600.

I am assuming that half brightness would therefore be 500 nits and therefore as bright as the 13” on full-brightness.

But I don’t think apple would compare the batteries in this way if it made a huge difference.

I’m sure they are aware of how this makes customers feel.
Click to expand...

how do you increase it to 1600 nits? if its only sustained at 1000 nits
 
Kimcha said:
I think there are multiple factors.

First of all, the screen is much brighter and it seems like as, apple tested on half brightness (eight notches from the left).

So hopefully, you would be able to run it at 25% brightness and have the same brightness as the 13” inch MBP and get a bit more battery life.

The 13” also has 4 efficiency cores. But the 14” has only 2. So they traded battery for performance.

And of course the screen is higher resolution. So that would use more battery.

But to me that is also the biggest disappointment.

Other than that it’s a perfect laptop.
Click to expand...
The screen is brighter only when viewing HDR content, so this argument is not correct. The slightly higher resolution can also not have that of an impact, so I guess that it's the performance cores.
 
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Kimcha said:
Yes, the 13” MBP is 500 nits and the 14” can do sustained 1,000 nits and can go up to 1,600.

I am assuming that half brightness would therefore be 500 nits and therefore as bright as the 13” on full-brightness.

But I don’t think apple would compare the batteries in this way if it made a huge difference.

I’m sure they are aware of how this makes customers feel.
Click to expand...
Again, wrong. The new MBPs can go up to 500 nits for SDR content.
 
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Xolp said:
Do you think the result of the terrible battery life on the 14 MBP is pro motion? would turning it off help?

The regular M1 has up to 17 hours wireless web but the 14 only does 11 hours...

This is the only thing turning me off from purchasing

Thanks
Click to expand...
The pro motion screen likely contributes to a longer battery life. One of it’s strenghts is the ability to scale the refresh rated down as low as 24Hz to save power when the screen is not scrolling or updating.

The M1 is like a 4-cylinder car. It’s going to get pretty good gas mileage because that is one of its design goals.

The new MBPs are like 6-cylinder and 8-cylinder cars. They are about power and performance and are not optimized to get the best gas mileage.
 
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I'm going from a 2015 MBP so I'd imagine it'll be around the same or better battery life which will be good for me.
 
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The M1 13” MBP has a worse display and uses an iPad chip.

The 16” MBP will have worse battery life too despite what Apple claims. That 32-core GPU and 10-core CPU will suck up all energy under full load.

Which the M1 13” MBP cannot do as it uses an iPad chip.
 
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Compared to MacBook Pro 13:
  • 16% greater display area
  • 45% more display pixels
  • 100% brighter display
  • 30W CPU / 55W GPU (vs. 10-15W for M1)
But only 20% higher battery capacity.
 
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petvas said:
Again, wrong. The new MBPs can go up to 500 nits for SDR content.
Click to expand...
Not according to the specs on Apple's website.
Screen Shot 2021-10-19 at 10.26.27 PM.png
 
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More than anything it comes to the chip:

- The MacBook Air (and 13” Pro) use the M1 which was designed for efficiency as top priority. Hence 4 efficiency cores and 4 performance cores.

- The 14” (and 16”) MacBook Pros use the M1 Pro and M1 Max which were both designed for performance as top priority. Hence 2 efficiency cores and 8 performance cores.

You can’t really compare battery life because these devices are designed for very different purposes. A Prius is designed to be as fuel efficient as possible but it won’t do anything for spirited drivers. A Toyota Supra is much faster but it won’t take you as far as the Prius. A corvette is even faster and uses even more fuel. More power = more fuel. You can’t expect M1 Pro and M1 Max performance without some battery life trade off.
 
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terminator-jq said:
More than anything it comes to the chip:

- The MacBook Air (and 13” Pro) use the M1 which was designed for efficiency as top priority. Hence 4 efficiency cores and 4 performance cores.

- The 14” (and 16”) MacBook Pros use the M1 Pro and M1 Max which were both designed for performance as top priority. Hence 2 efficiency cores and 8 performance cores.

You can’t really compare battery life because these devices are designed for very different purposes. A Prius is designed to be as fuel efficient as possible but it won’t do anything for spirited drivers. A Toyota Supra is much faster but it won’t take you as far as the Prius. A corvette is even faster and uses even more fuel. More power = more fuel. You can’t expect M1 Pro and M1 Max performance without some battery life trade off.
Click to expand...
Pretty much this.

Also remember, there is almost an equivalent of a 3080 RTX with the M1Max, just insane.
 
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terminator-jq said:
More than anything it comes to the chip:

- The MacBook Air (and 13” Pro) use the M1 which was designed for efficiency as top priority. Hence 4 efficiency cores and 4 performance cores.

- The 14” (and 16”) MacBook Pros use the M1 Pro and M1 Max which were both designed for performance as top priority. Hence 2 efficiency cores and 8 performance cores.

You can’t really compare battery life because these devices are designed for very different purposes. A Prius is designed to be as fuel efficient as possible but it won’t do anything for spirited drivers. A Toyota Supra is much faster but it won’t take you as far as the Prius. A corvette is even faster and uses even more fuel. More power = more fuel. You can’t expect M1 Pro and M1 Max performance without some battery life trade off.
Click to expand...

EnderTW said:
Pretty much this.

Also remember, there is almost an equivalent of a 3080 RTX with the M1Max, just insane.
Click to expand...


Certainly not.

Apple's battery life estimates are based on browsing 25 websites. And video playback at 1080P. That's something even the low power cores on an iPhone 7 can handle. So the CPU/GPU power consumption is very low on the ladder.

A faster processor allows the system to "hurry up and get idle," as Intel puts it.

The biggest contributor for a notebook computer or smartphone has always been the display. The 14-inch has much more display area, 45% more pixels, and 100% increase in brightness.
 
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This is far from a controlled test, but when I use iStats pro to check my 2015 MBP 15 inch while viewing MacRumors, at 8 clicks of brightness I idle at around 12 watts, and at full brightness I idle around 19 watts. So based on that, I think display brightness does make a big difference.
 
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