Only 6.5 Hours Battery Life 2015 rMBP 15" Base

[k4show]

Hello,

I received my 2015 rMBP 15" base model (no discrete GPU), and the battery life doesn't seem to be as high as Apple quotes it. It says I have about 6.5 hours of battery remaining without Safari open. Any ideas if this could be faulty hardware? Battery health is at 100% with only 7 cycles. See attached screenshots. Screen brightness is at 50%

Install was done clean, no transfer of files or anything from another Mac. It is updated to OS X 10.11.5.

Thanks!

 

[T5BRICK]

Battery life is highly dependent on usage. Estimated time remaining is just an estimate and isn't very accurate(because, you know, it's an estimate).

Personally, I run my Mac off of the battery when I need to and charge it when I can. I don't even have the percentage indicator turned on because it's also just an estimate.

 

[simonsi]

You will be having your screen brighter and/or running more stuff than Apple does when they quote the battery life.

How many miles do you get to a tank of gas? Different to the next person eh? Same with battery life.

 

[k4show]

You will be having your screen brighter and/or running more stuff than Apple does when they quote the battery life.

How many miles do you get to a tank of gas? Different to the next person eh? Same with battery life.

I heard Apple runs their screens at 75% brightness when doing battery tests. I'm at 50% or less

 

[simonsi]

You will be having your screen brighter and/or running more stuff than Apple does when they quote the battery life.

How many miles do you get to a tank of gas? Different to the next person eh? Same with battery life.

 

[shoehornhands]

Hello,

I received my 2015 rMBP 15" base model (no discrete GPU), and the battery life doesn't seem to be as high as Apple quotes it. It says I have about 6.5 hours of battery remaining without Safari open. Any ideas if this could be faulty hardware? Battery health is at 100% with only 7 cycles. See attached screenshots. Screen brightness is at 50%

Install was done clean, no transfer of files or anything from another Mac. It is updated to OS X 10.11.5.

Thanks!

Apple specifies battery life as "up to" a particular value (it doesn't explicitly say that's what you'll get).

Turn your display brightness down to 1, disable bluetooth and Wi-Fi, close out of all apps, then wait a few minutes (doing nothing) and see what the battery indicator shows (I'm guessing you'll see it jump up quite a bit).

Expected battery life is typically based on fairly idealized scenarios (that's marketing for you), and nobody does marketing better than Apple (that's how they get people paying $2500 - $3000+ for 3 to 4 year old computers).

 

[ncm34]

Hello,

I received my 2015 rMBP 15" base model (no discrete GPU), and the battery life doesn't seem to be as high as Apple quotes it. It says I have about 6.5 hours of battery remaining without Safari open. Any ideas if this could be faulty hardware? Battery health is at 100% with only 7 cycles. See attached screenshots. Screen brightness is at 50%

Install was done clean, no transfer of files or anything from another Mac. It is updated to OS X 10.11.5.

Thanks!

What resolution setting are you running at? And what does your typical day-to-day usage look like?

I always get 2-3 hours short of Apple's estimates on my 15" since I run it at 1920x1200 (the highest HiDPI setting). Any setting higher than "Best for Retina" will tax the Iris GPU and consequently your battery every time you switch spaces, resize a window, open Mission Control, etc. as it is rendering a larger image and is also scaling it down to fit your screen.

"Best for Retina" consistently gave me battery life aligned with Apple estimates.

 

[jlc1978]

I get 5 - 6 hours on a charge running PowerPoint in slideshow mode with an external projector, Bluetooth to speaker and powering the speaker from the MBP's USB port.

 

[k4show]

I had noticed that cfprefsd had written 4GB to disk since last boot. I did some research and this was caused from AdBlock Plus, when I uninstalled AdBlock Plus when at 40% left, I have 4:26 remaining, much better!

 

[Gav2k]

I heard Apple runs their screens at 75% brightness when doing battery tests. I'm at 50% or less

Testing conducted by Apple in April 2015 using preproduction 2.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7–based 15-inch MacBook Pro systems with 256GB of flash storage and 16GB of RAM. Testing conducted by Apple in February 2015 using preproduction 2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i5–based 13-inch MacBook Pro units (wireless web test and HD movie playback test) and preproduction 2.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i5–based 13-inch MacBook Pro units (standby test). The wireless web test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing 25 popular websites with display brightness set to 12 clicks from bottom or 75%. The HD movie playback test measures battery life by playing back HD 1080p content with display brightness set to 12 clicks from bottom or 75%. The standby test measures battery life by allowing a system, connected to a wireless network and signed in to an iCloud account, to enter standby mode with Safari and Mail applications launched and all system settings left at default. Battery life varies by use and configuration.

 

[tusctodd]

If you are using Chrome it will kill your battery life. I have had similar results with Firefox.

I have had the best results with battery life using Safari.

 

[JackieInCo]

I usually get about 4-5 just using my 15" 2.5GHZ 2015 browsing the net. I keep the brightness just below 50%. I think that usage is pretty good. I do have Adblock plus installed as well but I refuse to remove it.

 

[k4show]

I usually get about 4-5 just using my 15" 2.5GHZ 2015 browsing the net. I keep the brightness just below 50%. I think that usage is pretty good. I do have Adblock plus installed as well but I refuse to remove it.

I found just Adblock works great as well.

 

[JackieInCo]

I found just Adblock works great as well.

I'm not worried about it. After 13 months, my 2015 has 11 cycles on the battery. Those were only put on just to use the battery occasionally. My 2012 13" is just about 1 year old now and has the same amount of cycles on it.

 

[unagimiyagi]

halve the battery life that Apple quotes. That's honestly the best way to approach this: lower your expectations.
The fact is that battery life between good and bad computers is not an order of magnitude different, even with all optimizations. If you're going to use your computer like a computer and not worry about saving battery, then the difference between all laptops shrinks considerably. If you're going to work through outlook, microsoft word, and look at an excel sheet all day long, then you will get longer times.

Until battery life is quoted as 20+ hours, which would mean real world usage is around 8-10 hours, then battery life is only a small variable when assessing a computer to buy. Especially since the battery life decreases progressively as the laptop ages. There' s a large difference even after one year of ownership. It's not worth it to split hairs.

 

[robvas]

I get 8 hours of out my rMBP 13" surfing the web and editing text files. That's how Apple advertises the battery life, 'wireless web use'

My 13" Air would last 12+

 

[GoldfishRT]

If you haven't already, use the laptop until it goes to sleep then plug it in and charge it all the way up, I believe that makes the estimate more accurate. My MBP went from estimating 3 hours to a more accurate 7-8.

 

[Ethosik]

Apple specifies battery life as "up to" a particular value (it doesn't explicitly say that's what you'll get).

Turn your display brightness down to 1, disable bluetooth and Wi-Fi, close out of all apps, then wait a few minutes (doing nothing) and see what the battery indicator shows (I'm guessing you'll see it jump up quite a bit).

Expected battery life is typically based on fairly idealized scenarios (that's marketing for you), and nobody does marketing better than Apple (that's how they get people paying $2500 - $3000+ for 3 to 4 year old computers).

We had the power go out recently for a few hours. Luckily I had the second Hobbit movie downloaded on iTunes (did not see it before that night). Wifi was off, brightness was at the lowest setting since all lights were out, nothing else was open. I had about 11.5 hours remaining battery life. That is pretty good! I have had this laptop since 2013 too!

 

[ShionoyaTamaki]

What browser you use and what addon/extension are running can be a huge factor in battery life.

 

[ceparker27]

Odd. I still eke out 8 hours on average after 213 cycles on my 15 using the internet, though I keep my screen brightness fairly low because I don't do bright lights well.

 

[shoehornhands]

We had the power go out recently for a few hours. Luckily I had the second Hobbit movie downloaded on iTunes (did not see it before that night). Wifi was off, brightness was at the lowest setting since all lights were out, nothing else was open. I had about 11.5 hours remaining battery life. That is pretty good! I have had this laptop since 2013 too!

Yeah, I certainly don't doubt it. Whenever I lose power, the first thing I do is turn off Bluetooth, WiFi, and drop the display brightness way down (those seem to be the big 3 with regard to power consumption). While doing nothing at all, the last time I checked, my battery estimate was at 12+ hours on the 15" and I believe the 13" gets slightly better batter life than the 15".

 

[seggy]

Hello,

I received my 2015 rMBP 15" base model (no discrete GPU), and the battery life doesn't seem to be as high as Apple quotes it. It says I have about 6.5 hours of battery remaining without Safari open. Any ideas if this could be faulty hardware? Battery health is at 100% with only 7 cycles. See attached screenshots. Screen brightness is at 50%

Install was done clean, no transfer of files or anything from another Mac. It is updated to OS X 10.11.5.

Thanks!

The estimate is that, an estimate. It's totally dependent on what you're doing. Unless you run the battery down yourself you won't know what you'll actually get in your use.

Having said that, Apple's battery life estimate is done by using a scenario where it suits OSX's particular strengths. It's kinda odd that so many other reviewers also use pretty much the same metrics when you could easily subject it to something a lot more real-life...

I'm a realistic power ekeing master at this point in time (lowest brightness I can make out the screen properly, etc) and I usually get a percentage like 7 hours vs 9 claimed hours for actual productivity use - which doesn't actually seem to be OSX's strength, battery wise.

It's kinda weird - or maybe as with the above reviewer bit again not actually that weird - that I can get the same level vs claimed on many other Windows laptops (not all of course, some are terrible) with much less intervention, but that in reviews the Macs always win out by a large margin.

 

[maflynn]

While I have an older model, my battery life has always been in the 6 (maybe a scosh longer) hours, and now that the battery is quite old, its not lasting very long.

I think battery life advertised is your best case scenario that you will be hard pressed to achieve

 

[ajpuciat]

Using chrome is one surefire way to get less than advertised battery life.

 

[JackieInCo]

5-6 hrs is usually what I get with the display just under 50% and the keyboard lights off and that is just in surfing the net. I think that's more than acceptable. I could get better then that if I lowered the brightness even more but then the display starts bothering my eyes.