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rMBP '13 My complaints:

B

BluAffiliate

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 16, 2010
376
65
#1 Brightness: I am always reaching for the brighter button but it's always on max. The device feels like it's quite dim compared to all of my other devices (iPad 3, iPhone 5, ASUS PC and even my old Macbook Pro '09).

#2 Volume: This device is softer than the iPad volume.. WTF?

#3 Battery Life: I know the advertised battery life is like 8 hours or so, but in my day to day use it last a max of 3, usually around 2ish, on maximum brightness, iTunes playing music, and Google Chrome with plenty of tabs open.


Otherwise it's pretty solid but quite disappointed in these areas. Anyone with the same issues?
 
BluAffiliate said:
#1 Brightness: I am always reaching for the brighter button but it's always on max. The device feels like it's quite dim compared to all of my other devices (iPad 3, iPhone 5, ASUS PC and even my old Macbook Pro '09).

#2 Volume: This device is softer than the iPad volume.. WTF?

#3 Battery Life: I know the advertised battery life is like 8 hours or so, but in my day to day use it last a max of 3, usually around 2ish, on maximum brightness, iTunes playing music, and Google Chrome with plenty of tabs open.


Otherwise it's pretty solid but quite disappointed in these areas. Anyone with the same issues?
Click to expand...

can't tell if trolling or not...
 
So max brightness is insufficient for u ?? Ure going blind my friend, better head to an optician for a check up
 
BluAffiliate said:
#1 Brightness: I am always reaching for the brighter button but it's always on max. The device feels like it's quite dim compared to all of my other devices (iPad 3, iPhone 5, ASUS PC and even my old Macbook Pro '09).
This is normal. Your rMBP has tons of pixels which requires a more powerful backlight than other devices. The problem is that the more powerful backlight requires more battery power, and the screen itself already uses lots of power so apple decided to sacrifice some backlight for battery.

#2 Volume: This device is softer than the iPad volume.. WTF?

#3 Battery Life: I know the advertised battery life is like 8 hours or so, but in my day to day use it last a max of 3, usually around 2ish, on maximum brightness, iTunes playing music, and Google Chrome with plenty of tabs open.
You can't expect good battery life with max brightness and doing lots of multitasking. That just uses more CPU which in turn uses more battery. You would see improvement by lowering your brightness to 50-75% which is what most people use. Some even put it down to 25% which is probably how apple tests the battery life.

Otherwise it's pretty solid but quite disappointed in these areas. Anyone with the same issues?
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Comments in red ^^^^^^^^^^
 
I've thought the brightness was a bit low too though it's been good enough so far. I rarely used anything close to max on my older non-Retina anyway.

Chrome uses a lot of battery. There's an issue on the chromium bug tracker for app nap support. You can subscribe to it for updates. Would guess it will come any sooner than at least a few months. For now, I've switched to Safari.
 
You're just bleeding energy by running at maximum brightness. I ran some tests on different brightness levels on my 2.6GHz 13" rMBP.

These are all total power draw of my mac:

Minimum brightness: 4W
25% brightness: 4.3W
50% brightness: 5W
75% brightness: 6.3W
100% brightness: 9.6W

Depending on the task at hand, you can save a LOT of power just by decreasing the brightness to 75% (four bars below the max). It's also not worth going much below 50% for the sake of saving power.
 
I've noticed the brightness is dimmer than past MBPs, but nothing too bad for me. On my previous Macs I would keep my brightness at about 1/3, but with my rMBP I need to keep it at about half.

Volume seems a tad quieter, but generally similar to what I've experienced in the past. I generally use headphones so it isn't something I've really noticed.

For battery life, I get the full 9 hours (sometimes more) when I'm just using Firefox and Osfoora (a Twitter app). Try turning down the brightness and using Safari. Some people see significant jumps in battery life using Safari vs Chrome/Firefox.

ohbrilliance said:
You're just bleeding energy by running at maximum brightness. I ran some tests on different brightness levels on my 2.6GHz 13" rMBP.

These are all total power draw of my mac:

Minimum brightness: 4W
25% brightness: 4.3W
50% brightness: 5W
75% brightness: 6.3W
100% brightness: 9.6W

Depending on the task at hand, you can save a LOT of power just by decreasing the brightness to 75% (four bars below the max). It's also not worth going much below 50% for the sake of saving power.
Click to expand...

This is interesting. Thanks for the info. I had no idea that below 50% the difference is that small.
 
The iPad Air I have is definitely brighter than my rMBP. But the two of them are already so bright if I ran them on full brightness I get a headache.
 
I am afraid I agree with all those points. I also went looking for more brightness a few times. Battery on medium-intensive usage is grim (less than 2 hours).

But what wasn't mentioned there, something that really annoys me, is how everything lags when scrolling. The 13'' obviously cannot manage the retina screen smoothly.

Don't take me wrong, I am blown away by so many other things about this laptop, but I would be blind if I didn't see at what cost those amazing features come.
 
Tears Apart said:
I am afraid I agree with all those points. I also went looking for more brightness a few times. Battery on medium-intensive usage is grim (less than 2 hours).

But what wasn't mentioned there, something that really annoys me, is how everything lags when scrolling. The 13'' obviously cannot manage the retina screen smoothly.

Don't take me wrong, I am blown away by so many other things about this laptop, but I would be blind if I didn't see at what cost those amazing features come.
Click to expand...

Which Macbook Pro do you have? No issues with scrolling here.
 
Quu said:
The iPad Air I have is definitely brighter than my rMBP. But the two of them are already so bright if I ran them on full brightness I get a headache.
Click to expand...

Agreed! Especially on very light websites as an example. Like macrumors! Very harsh at max brightness.
 
BluAffiliate said:
Nah it isn't. And it's quite dimmer than the iPad which makes it weird.
Click to expand...

iPad needs to be ALWAYS brighter than laptops to compensate for the fingers print and grease over the screen, if the iPad's screen were dimmer you'd see the grease and everything would look blurry.
 
BluAffiliate said:
and Google Chrome with plenty of tabs open.
Click to expand...

Google Chrome is an issue. My roommate gets 5-6 hours out of his 2011 MBP, that drops to 1-2 when Chrome is running, and my experience has been similar (though I don't use Chrome anymore, so I don't have any solid numbers). I would highly recommend moving to Safari when battery life is important, though Firefox isn't terrible power-wise, just not optimal.
 
c1phr said:
Google Chrome is an issue. My roommate gets 5-6 hours out of his 2011 MBP, that drops to 1-2 when Chrome is running, and my experience has been similar (though I don't use Chrome anymore, so I don't have any solid numbers). I would highly recommend moving to Safari when battery life is important, though Firefox isn't terrible power-wise, just not optimal.
Click to expand...

But Safari is so bad compared to chrome, ugh! I also use a lot of addons.
 
BluAffiliate said:
But Safari is so bad compared to chrome, ugh! I also use a lot of addons.
Click to expand...

Then get on Chrome. Though I don't have many issues with my MBA. I get roughly 5 hours with half brightness using Coda, Chrome, Safari, Reminders, Mail, Calendar, iMessages (+ Google Hangouts, use iMessages for this).

Though when I am not web developing (not often), I just use Safari + Rest of the apps. Chrome is a hog in terms of resources. You can also disable flash on Chrome, here.

Seriously man, the only time I've turned up to max brightness is on a sunny day.
 
BluAffiliate said:
Thanks for a reasonable response. Those are rare these days, when you criticize an apple product people seem to take it personally.
Click to expand...

I love to criticize Apple it's kinda sport but they do enough stuff that deserves criticism that we don't need to criticizes them for thing beyond their control. You turned your brightness up and used a non-standard browser then wonder out loud why your battery life sucks. Your battery life issues come from the operator not product. Always check operator head space and timing before anything else.
 
MyMac1976 said:
I love to criticize Apple it's kinda sport but they do enough stuff that deserves criticism that we don't need to criticizes them for thing beyond their control. You turned your brightness up and used a non-standard browser then wonder out loud why your battery life sucks. Your battery life issues come from the operator not product. Always check operator head space and timing before anything else.
Click to expand...

Non-standard browser? Since when did Safari (One of the worst browsers actually, the only one worse is Internet Explorer) is now deemed "standard" and that I'm using my mac wrong if I don't use it? Get your head out from Apple's propaganda.
 
Pro tip. Turn down your ipad brightness. It should not be over 75% unless you're in a bright room or outside.
 
BluAffiliate said:
Non-standard browser? Since when did Safari (One of the worst browsers actually, the only one worse is Internet Explorer) is now deemed "standard" and that I'm using my mac wrong if I don't use it? Get your head out from Apple's propaganda.
Click to expand...

It's not the browser they test on nor the one with all the built in Power management capabilities. I don't love Safari or Chrome I like Chromium OK and Firefox will sync stuff between my linux box and my Mac so I like it but it seems the new iterations of Opera seem the least fat and just about as fast.
 
MyMac1976 said:
It's not the browser they test on nor the one with all the built in Power management capabilities. I don't love Safari or Chrome I like Chromium OK and Firefox will sync stuff between my linux box and my Mac so I like it but it seems the new iterations of Opera seem the least fat and just about as fast.
Click to expand...

That's like saying: Our car gets 50 mpg! But only if you use our special Toyota Gas and drive only on special Toyota Certified Roads.
 
BluAffiliate said:
Non-standard browser? Since when did Safari (One of the worst browsers actually, the only one worse is Internet Explorer) is now deemed "standard" and that I'm using my mac wrong if I don't use it? Get your head out from Apple's propaganda.
Click to expand...

Safari was once a crappy browser, but it has matured quite a bit over the years. What makes you hate it so much?

But still, even Firefox is better at resource and energy management than Chrome.
 
c1phr said:
Safari was once a crappy browser, but it has matured quite a bit over the years. What makes you hate it so much?

But still, even Firefox is better at resource and energy management than Chrome.
Click to expand...

Lack of features that I am used to.. "feels" weird while using it. Bad app support.
 
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