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Retina MBP Battery Life??

Mak47 said:
It stands to reason that the 2.3 will get somewhat better battery life than the 2.6. The extra cycles aren't powered by fairy dust and the batteries are identical.

Everybody's usage will be different, and I wouldn't expect 9+ hours to be the norm, but the 2.3 should absolutely get better battery life than the 2.6.
Click to expand...

Agreed, however it`s good to see the numbers, I am considering which rMBP to buy and I am beginning to think that I will benefit far more from the extended run time of the 2.3, over the performance benefit of the 2.6/2.7

Storage I don't really care about, as even the 256Gb is far more than enough for OS, app`s and any current work, and small USB 3 drives are plentiful and cheap for non critical stuff like films etc

I was pretty much decided on a 2.6/2.7 seeing these numbers the 2.3 is now looking a little stronger and with the price saving I would be able to add a TB Display which is well worth thinking about :cool:
 
Queen6 said:
Agreed, however it`s good to see the numbers, I am considering which rMBP to buy and I am beginning to think that I will benefit far more from the extended run time of the 2.3, over the performance benefit of the 2.6/2.7

Storage I don't really care about, as even the 256Gb is far more than enough for OS, app`s and any current work, and small USB 3 drives are plentiful and cheap for non critical stuff like films etc

I was pretty much decided on a 2.6/2.7 seeing these numbers the 2.3 is now looking a little stronger and with the price saving I would be able to add a TB Display which is well worth thinking about :cool:
Click to expand...

i'd save for the 32" retina TB:p, my 27 TB is ancient news now:(
 
For what it's worth, I am getting the 9 hour time from the OP report. Currently today I'm at 73% which estimates another 6 hours and 42 minutes left. I have power point and chrome open (4 tabs open on Chrome).

I started with a 100% charge and used it in this same state from 10:30-12:15 and from 2:30-now (3:15), so that's about 2.5 hours, add in my 6 hours 42 minutes of estimated battery life, and I come up with just over 9 hours.

I bought this thing the day it came out and it came with 2 cycles already on the battery and I'm currently only on 6 so I've charged it 4 times in 9 days. I normally have something like Netbeans open as well, but today I don't.

Config is 2.3/256/8
 
trsblader said:
For what it's worth, I am getting the 9 hour time from the OP report. Currently today I'm at 73% which estimates another 6 hours and 42 minutes left. I have power point and chrome open (4 tabs open on Chrome).

I started with a 100% charge and used it in this same state from 10:30-12:15 and from 2:30-now (3:15), so that's about 2.5 hours, add in my 6 hours 42 minutes of estimated battery life, and I come up with just over 9 hours.

I bought this thing the day it came out and it came with 2 cycles already on the battery and I'm currently only on 6 so I've charged it 4 times in 9 days. I normally have something like Netbeans open as well, but today I don't.

Config is 2.3/256/8
Click to expand...

Million dollar question is ... what are your brightness settings? I think the prevailing theme here is that depending on your brightness settings, your battery life mileage may vary.
 
Auto brightness set about 1/4 the length down the slider. Plenty bright for me to see and do whatever, so I'm not sacrificing sight for battery life.
 
Mak47 said:
It stands to reason that the 2.3 will get somewhat better battery life than the 2.6. The extra cycles aren't powered by fairy dust and the batteries are identical.

Everybody's usage will be different, and I wouldn't expect 9+ hours to be the norm, but the 2.3 should absolutely get better battery life than the 2.6.
Click to expand...

Wrong cause there is also the race-to-idle. 2.6 would complete tasks much faster than 2.3. After completion it would go back to idle state where it consumes less power.
 
Folks your results will vary! It all depends on screen brightness. With the screen at 1 or 2 and light use I get 9-10 hours. Crank the screen to mid brightness and I get 7 hours. At max it'll be like 5 hours.

Can you work at 1-2? Well it depends on what the lighting conditions are in your room. If it is pitch dark that might be ok. In direct sunlight, forget about it.
 
2.6 Retina Battery life

I picked up the 2.6 Retina version from the Apple store yesterday and have had about a day and a half to play with it. For reference I have a 2011 2.3 MBP with the hi-res screen to compare it to.

Immediately I noticed a significant improvement in the battery life between the two machines. The RMBP is much better with battery life. As I type, I have 84% left and it says between 6:38 to 7:00 hours remaining. Something I never saw with my 2011 version. I have been using this fairly solid for about 2 hours surfing the forums and listening to iTunes.

I am fairly conservative with the brightness settings, I am about a 4 on the brightness setting. I also have the resolution set to maximum (1920x1200)

I am glad that my biggest concern with the Retina display, battery life, does not appear to be an issue.
 
Really glad i got the Retina Pro, the battery life is basically double what I got out of my old 11" Air.

Currently just surfing the web over Wi-Fi with brightness at 5 blocks:

ScreenShot2012-06-22at82020AM.png


It's fallen to around 9 and a half hours since that shot, still not bad. And this is with the 2.6 model, not the more energy efficient 2.3 model.
 
2.3 model, got just about 7 hours while playing iTunes through the speakers the whole time, and lots of apps using wifi (linkinus, Mail [checking mail every minute, 3 accounts], chrome [refreshing a page every 5 seconds, simple status page], etc). Screen was on the entire time

also, brightness was just over 1/3. could probably get even higher battery life if I didn't have as much running

overall, an extremely good perk of choosing RMBP no matter how you swing it!
 
Has there been any verification on the huge difference in battery life between the 2.3 and 2.6ghz processors shown in Engadget's test? Wondering if I should return my 2.6ghz and opt for the 2.3ghz, especially since now you can get the base model with the 512GB SSD without upgrading the processor... It's only $100 difference, so money isn't the issue. I'd much rather have a battery that lasts 20% longer than a processor that's 5% faster...
 
I can get 12 hours of WiFi use if I turn down brightness to 3 dots and keyboard backlight off. I can even get 6 hours with high brightness and heavy WiFi use. I get around 4 hours when working on Aperture.
 
These are some amazing numbers I see in these posts and obviously we all understand that battery life varies with each user but I am not getting anything near what most have stated.

I have the CTO 2.3 16GB and have never seen anything more than 5 hours even with nothing turned on - is there anything I can do before I send it back to Apple?

Currently I have Chrome open (no flash sites) and brightness on 4. When I opened it 30 mins ago it was 87% not its 76% with about 4:54 hours.
 
Got the base rMBP model and i really like the battery life, but i run gfxcardstatus so i only run on integrated graphics when i'm away without a charger, also here brightness is by far the biggest impact on battery life.
During evenings i get really nice battery life of about 8 to 9 hours doing some light surfing,...
But if it's sunny and i need to crank up the brightness then i don't get over 5 hours, if i'm doing heavy tasks with high brightness it's even a lot shorter.

I'm also VERY amazed with how fast this laptop charges!!!! When i charge the iPad 3 it takes a whole night, this rMBP flies to 100% on the charger.
(haven't measured it)
 
TheMacBookPro said:
Really glad i got the Retina Pro, the battery life is basically double what I got out of my old 11" Air.

Currently just surfing the web over Wi-Fi with brightness at 5 blocks:

Image

It's fallen to around 9 and a half hours since that shot, still not bad. And this is with the 2.6 model, not the more energy efficient 2.3 model.
Click to expand...

The 2.3 being more energy efficient than the 2.6 is probably a hoax. They're both 45W processors, and will most likely give you the same battery life under the same loads.

...The "2.3 is better than the 2.6" is most likely variation, as MBP battery lives don't seem to be overly consistent.
 
To MacBook with Retina Display Owners, How much

Is the discrepancy across different processor models really that wide in terms of their respective effect on battery life?

Could you guys post your i7 Models and what amount of Battery life you get out of it with, more or less, the same amount of use that Apple gets those estimated seven hours?

Thanks in advance
 
Last edited:
my rmbp gets 10.5 hours on average, surfing on integrated graphics with 1/2 brightness

edit: 2.3/16/256 model
 
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