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MBP 2018 Battery Life

S

semajm85

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 30, 2012
83
92
Hey guys, just starting this so we can all share and have some comparison on the battery life of these devices.

just share you model, spec, workload and battery life.

for me I have the i9(currently ) with 32gb and 1tb. as of now I'm getting 6to7 hours as I've been setting up, using a whole bunch of safari tabs and Photos catalog running.
 
could you please elaborate on what you do usually on your macbook, screen brightness, apps you are using, are those 8-9 hours screen time or also sleep time ?
 
By "Battery Life", to what battery bottom extent do u indicate?

40%? - healthy enough to charge, 30%? - A bit worrisome already but still fine, 20%? - U R literally shortening your battery "REAL LIFE", 10%? - Cant even bear to see this figure on the top right! or even lower than 5% - holy mama...
 
abn5x said:
could you please elaborate on what you do usually on your macbook, screen brightness, apps you are using, are those 8-9 hours screen time or also sleep time ?
Click to expand...
Screen time of 8-9 hours. Screen brightness typically around 50. Sometimes above, even at max if I need it. Apps? iTunes, MS Office suite, Chrome with 10-15 tabs open...messages app open, mail app in background. And sometimes I’ll have a couple finder windows open.

Yosemitebear said:
By "Battery Life", to what battery bottom extent do u indicate?

40%? - healthy enough to charge, 30%? - A bit worrisome already but still fine, 20%? - U R literally shortening your battery "REAL LIFE", 10%? - Cant even bear to see this figure on the top right! or even lower than 5% - holy mama...
Click to expand...

When I quote my battery life I am saying from 100% to 0-1%. I’m not using my computer 8-9 hours straight. I’m not Accounting for sleep/inactive time
 
Battery was horrible on my old i9 15", 32GB, 560X, 512SSD.

I get around 4-5 hours, 4-5 safari tabs, brightness 25-50%, iTunes / youtube music. Boom 2 volume boost. I am honestly shocked at the horrible battery.
 
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I asked an Apple sales the battery life of 13" and 15" models. He said that both are rated at about 10 hours but then he said that since the 15" has a GPU in it, the 13" should have a better battery life. Any real data on this?
 
What's the best way to track battery life? Coconut battery?

Or does MacOS show the usage time since last charge somewhere?
 
I'm getting atrocious battery life right now. I had been developing on my LG 5k and so haven't really needed to worry about battery life. However, today I took the machine to my local coffee shop to do some development. I was working on a client whose stack required Visual Studio 2017 and SQL Server running under Parallels. I barely got 2.5 hours of battery life before I had to pack it in. Normally, I'd get about 6-8 hours on my 15" Surface Book 2 with the same workload. Now, obviously Parallels isn't a native environment, but I am still pretty dismayed. I'm seeing a whole lot of people complaining about battery life under Parallels. Any ideas?

It is a 15" 32GB/512GB i7 2.2Ghz.
 
kodos said:
I'm getting atrocious battery life right now. I had been developing on my LG 5k and so haven't really needed to worry about battery life. However, today I took the machine to my local coffee shop to do some development. I was working on a client whose stack required Visual Studio 2017 and SQL Server running under Parallels. I barely got 2.5 hours of battery life before I had to pack it in. Normally, I'd get about 6-8 hours on my 15" Surface Book 2 with the same workload. Now, obviously Parallels isn't a native environment, but I am still pretty dismayed. I'm seeing a whole lot of people complaining about battery life under Parallels. Any ideas?

It is a 15" 32GB/512GB i7 2.2Ghz.
Click to expand...
Software optimization from parallels?
 
kodos said:
I was working on a client whose stack required Visual Studio 2017 and SQL Server running under Parallels. I barely got 2.5 hours of battery life before I had to pack it in. Normally, I'd get about 6-8 hours on my 15" Surface Book 2 with the same workload. Now, obviously Parallels isn't a native environment, but I am still pretty dismayed. I'm seeing a whole lot of people complaining about battery life under Parallels. Any ideas?
Click to expand...
I have found battery life under Parallels/Windows can really vary widely depending on Parallels settings. Some things to check:
  • Consider disabling Windows updates when running on battery. For some reason they can really cause high CPU loads for long periods of time.
  • Check the configuration settings for your Virtual Machine: changing the amount of RAM, number of cores, can have big impacts on the battery in my experience.
  • Try tweaking the amount of memory given to graphics: too little or too much can have an outsized effect. I use 512MB on a 15" 1680x1050 resolution.
  • You may want to disable 3D acceleration since you probably don't need it for your work. That may turn of the dGPU.
  • Likewise, make sure "Automatic Graphics Switching" is checked on. (And also checked on on the Mac side in System Preferences.)
  • Occasionally, reinstalling Parallels Tools can keep it from running wild in the background.
I can usually get 6 to 6.5 hours running Visual Studio under Parallels on a 2016 MBP 15".
 
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poorcody said:
I have found battery life under Parallels/Windows can really vary widely depending on Parallels settings. Some things to check:
  • Consider disabling Windows updates when running on battery. For some reason they can really cause high CPU loads for long periods of time.
  • Check the configuration settings for your Virtual Machine: changing the amount of RAM, number of cores, can have big impacts on the battery in my experience.
  • Try tweaking the amount of memory given to graphics: too little or too much can have an outsized effect. I use 512MB on a 15" 1680x1050 resolution.
  • You may want to disable 3D acceleration since you probably don't need it for your work. That may turn of the dGPU.
  • Likewise, make sure "Automatic Graphics Switching" is checked on. (And also checked on on the Mac side in System Preferences.)
  • Occasionally, reinstalling Parallels Tools can keep it from running wild in the background.
I can usually get 6 to 6.5 hours running Visual Studio under Parallels on a 2016 MBP 15".
Click to expand...

Thanks, this is very helpful! It might very well be that the dGPU is kicking in since everything is running in Retina resolution on the Windows side too. Good to know that you are getting 6-6.5 hours on battery. That's very doable for my workloads.
 
kodos said:
Thanks, this is very helpful! It might very well be that the dGPU is kicking in since everything is running in Retina resolution on the Windows side too. Good to know that you are getting 6-6.5 hours on battery. That's very doable for my workloads.
Click to expand...

I don’t know about you but I noticed a bug where Parallels will use large amounts of CPU. I would often notice a spike in CPU usage to 50% (I give my Windows 10 VM 2 out of 4 cores to play with) and this would be sustained until I open Parallels again or quit it. This might (though unlikely) be causing your problem.
 
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