Poor MacBook Pro 2018 battery life

[OzAsiss]

hey,
I just got my new upgraded MacBook Pro 15" two days ago, and the battery life its pretty bad.
I get around 5-6 hours doing safari browsing, photos and mails, and when I start to edit with Lightroom or final cut I get like 2-3 hours.
battery status shows normal, but I don't see how its normal since Apple claiming it has like 9 or 10 hours of battery...
posted in Apple forums too but no one respond, hoping somebody here can help me, thanks

 

[maflynn]

Take it to apple and have them check it out.

What is the screen brightness set at? Typically those battery tests, include a screen set to (at least) 50% brightness. If you have your screen going full bore, then that will decrease your battery life.

 

[SDColorado]

hey,
I just got my new upgraded MacBook Pro 15" two days ago, and the battery life its pretty bad.
I get around 5-6 hours doing safari browsing, photos and mails, and when I start to edit with Lightroom or final cut I get like 2-3 hours.
battery status shows normal, but I don't see how its normal since Apple claiming it has like 9 or 10 hours of battery...
posted in Apple forums too but no one respond, hoping somebody here can help me, thanks

The people with those advertised battery estimates is that they usually arrive at the numbers using reduced screen brightness and running video loops. They are generally not very indicative of real world performance.

A little like the estimated MPG for cars, which also seems about impossible for most drivers to achieve.

 

[poorcody]

hey,
I just got my new upgraded MacBook Pro 15" two days ago, and the battery life its pretty bad.
I get around 5-6 hours doing safari browsing, photos and mails, and when I start to edit with Lightroom or final cut I get like 2-3 hours.
battery status shows normal, but I don't see how its normal since Apple claiming it has like 9 or 10 hours of battery...
posted in Apple forums too but no one respond, hoping somebody here can help me, thanks

I can get 9-11 hours doing light duty work on a 2016 MBP (at around 50% brightness). It's possible your machine hasn't finished indexing and updating and such. Might try keeping it on overnight to make sure it finishes it all up. I will get only 5-6 hours doing heavy-duty work like running VMs or IDEs, but you should get more than 2-3 hours under most circumstances. If it continues, I would have it checked.

 

[Ma2k5]

The people with those advertised battery estimates is that they usually arrive at the numbers using reduced screen brightness and running video loops. They are generally not very indicative of real world performance.

A little like the estimated MPG for cars, which also seems about impossible for most drivers to achieve.

Independant testing (this is notebookcheck.net but I've seen others) show pretty much 10 hours or more in various tests, including browser tests. I think there may be some background process going on, or the unlikely scenario that there is a problem with OP's machine.

This machine actually has decent battery life (unlike the 13" TBP ).

 

[SDColorado]

View attachment 799896

Independant testing (this is notebookcheck.net but I've seen others) show pretty much 10 hours or more in various tests, including browser tests. I think there may be some background process going on, or the unlikely scenario that there is a problem with OP's machine.

This machine actually has decent battery life (unlike the 13" TBP ).

Exactly the point I was making. Notebook Check shows you can achieve 10 hours of web surfing NBC in Safari at around 50% brighness. I am pretty sure that is not how most people spend the day using their laptops. I find those kinds of tests rather useless

 

[jerryk]

hey,
I just got my new upgraded MacBook Pro 15" two days ago, and the battery life its pretty bad.
I get around 5-6 hours doing safari browsing, photos and mails, and when I start to edit with Lightroom or final cut I get like 2-3 hours.
battery status shows normal, but I don't see how its normal since Apple claiming it has like 9 or 10 hours of battery...
posted in Apple forums too but no one respond, hoping somebody here can help me, thanks

The first day or so a Macbook is doing indexing of the drive so that increase the load. See how it works after 3 or 4 days. If it does not improve have Apple check it out.

 

[Ma2k5]

Exactly the point I was making. Notebook Check shows you can achieve 10 hours of web surfing NBC in Safari at around 50% brighness. I am pretty sure that is not how most people spend the day using their laptops. I find those kinds of tests rather useless

I mean if he's just doing safari, photos and mail, I'd expect a bit more than 5-6 hours even if he upped his brightness a bit more.

 

[SDColorado]

I mean if he's just doing safari, photos and mail, I'd expect a bit more than 5-6 hours even if he upped his brightness a bit more.

True, depends what you are doing with photos though. 5-6 hours is about where I find mine lasting when using it on battery, but like driving fuel economy is very depends how much of a lead foot you have or how much you twist the throttle

 

[jerryk]

True, depends what you are doing with photos though. 5-6 hours is about where I find mine lasting when using it on battery, but like driving fuel economy is very depends how much of a lead foot you have or how much you twist the throttle

Great analogy. As an EV driver it is pretty amazing how just driving a little faster (10 mph+) can eat up range. Same with computers or phones and screen brightness.

 

[fokmik]

i always reach 9-10 hours only with safari mail etc aka light usage...so or is your mac indexing or something, or there is a problem...try before you go to apple, to fresh reinstall Mojave

 

[artnoi]

Use comprehensive tools to evaluate the health gradually, personally I use Battery Monitor in App Store. It even has batter output in mA etc so you can benchmark your battery performance against the public, not just blind-guessing it’s defective.

I also use 2016 and 2018 MBP TB and none seems to last longer than 6 hours regular use (with ~200 and 7 charge cycles respectively). My gf’s MBA 2015 on the other hand always get near 10 hours every damn say and yes she discharges it near 0 and recharges it everyday. I guess the real problem is just that the MBP’s battery performance is poor and Apple made an overly optimistic estimate.