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Senior Apple Advisor admits that MBPs have battery issues
- Thread starter badlydrawnboy
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The problem is you are paying top dollar, for a product that has been in development for 4 years(last complete new design), the specs are old its not cutting edge, and Apple has done the trackpad and battery very well in the past.
You see there is nothing really "new" here that should have an issue, everything has been around for at least a year or more. If this was the first 4K display, or a new HDD technology you can forgive them
I think it'll be fine because if its not Apple will support it. Its not like other hardware that you are just left on your own to trouble shoot issues that should already be fixed.
It's not too thin.
But, after three days with my 13" MBP TB max battery life about 7 hours.
With BT, WIFI, Safari, and a program or two maybe 6.
I am reading about these "cycles" and "indexing" improving the battery life, I hope they are right.
Right now the battery life is the same as my 2015 12" doing the same tasks. Of course I now have a whole lot more performance with the faster CPU, which is the reason I purchased the 13".
10 hours would be nice and hopefully while doing some reasonably normal tasks.
I am the OP. I tried repeatedly to reach this senior advisor Friday and Saturday. She did return my email but never my calls, and on her email response she just asked me to call her back.
Now she is off for two days--Sunday and Monday--so I won't be able to talk with her until Tuesday, and that's assuming I'll be able to get through.
Also, it seems that the SMC reset discussed in other threads has helped with my battery life. Not sure there is a problem at this point.
The issue is this, "can we expect close to 10 hours (or advertised time depending on model) in normal use?"
Answer appears to be no.
As my use changes the life changes, but it looks like the way I use my 13" 6 - 7 hours total is max and when really pushing it (last night I had streaming video, iPad Air 2 plugged in as second screen and running Reallusion Crazy Talk 3) about 4 is max.
The reality verses our dreams, never the same. Of course sometimes our dreams are nightmares.
The issue is this, "can we expect close to 10 hours (or advertised time depending on model) in normal use?"
Answer appears to be no.
As my use changes the life changes, but it looks like the way I use my 13" 6 - 7 hours total is max and when really pushing it (last night I had streaming video, iPad Air 2 plugged in as second screen and running Reallusion Crazy Talk 3) about 4 is max.
The reality verses our dreams, never the same. Of course sometimes our dreams are nightmares.
Yes, and in fact I do still think I have a problem. The next charge cycle after the SMC reset only ended up being about 7.5 hours. Definitely better than 6, but nowhere near 10. And on the next cycle after that, right after unplugging from power Apple is estimating 7:15 at full charge, and Coconut Battery is telling me the MBP is drawing between 7-8 watts with only Safari open.
"It's not too thin."
"The battery life is bad though."
Reasoning 101 here. The laptop. Is. Too. Thin.
I guess I have to explain: The laptop. Is. Too. Thin. Because. Its battery. Can't. Handle.
Paul
It's not too thin because battery life was a compromise for thinness.
What you don't seem to get is we could have a 24 hour battery life but it would take a suitcase to move the computer. Back in the day the portable was known as a Kapro and weighed more than today's Mac Pro.
Basically you are looking for fault and thinness is not a fault.
So slow the rhetoric down a notch or two.
It's not too thin because battery life was a compromise for thinness.
What you don't seem to get is we could have a 24 hour battery life but it would take a suitcase to move the computer. Back in the day the portable was known as a Kapro and weighed more than today's Mac Pro.
Basically you are looking for fault and thinness is not a fault.
So slow the rhetoric down a notch or two.
What MBP? What year? 2015 or 2016 MBP's?
I have used 10 year old MBP's and still get half battery life.
I don't think you will need a suitcase for a 24 hour battery life. Maybe it will weigh 4-5 pounds depending on screen size. What you said is an exaggeration.
The sweet spot is - All day battery. Meaning you do not have to bring a charger with your for the full day. IMO that should be around 12-14 hours. The 2015 Macbook Pro design case should do be able to do it.
I think Apple made their tradeoffs and are comfortable with them. I believe they swing it too much to optimize for thin and light. I prefer a better balance.
Of course it is and it's called hyperbole and is meant to prove a point.
If you want more battery life then you need a bigger battery or cut down on the juice (that's technical talk for load) required to operate the device.
I want thinness and light weight, but the 12" and Airs don't have the speed or advanced features of the MBP line and that's why I purchased the 13". This new version, 2016, cut down nearly a half pound (about 1 pound more than the 12") and retained the speed and cooling fan at the same time, something I found running a VM well was needed.
Of course what you said is correct to get an honest 12+ hours out of the device it more than likely needs a bigger battery and that means with the current technology a bigger and heavier computer. I would not have purchased anything bigger for the amount of traveling I do.
But I had hoped the 10 hour advertised Battery Life was close to reality, I think that maybe a bit of a stretch by Apple.
Of course they also said the 12" would last up to 10 hours and the reality is more like 4.
BTW I remember when we all salivated over the Kapro portable computer. Boy it ran the latest OS, CPM, but was not a bargain at about $1,800, weighed just shy of 30 lbs. and included the power supply, built in monitor and detachable keyboard (no battery BTW).
Ironically CPM was the first choice by IBM for their new PC and the founder of Digital Research (some say) arrogantly stiffed IBM causing them to turn to a start-up known as Microsoft for their MSDOS. But maybe that's just a myth.
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Did you think that the MacBook Pro 2015 were too big or too heavy? Because IMO if we just stuck the components into last years chassis and battery these laptops would last 10 hours+ easily.
Yes, both, or I would have purchased that instead of the 12" MB. Lugging any extra weight around everyday gets really old.
Apple did a good job of slimming the design down for 2016 so I purchased one.
That's amazing. The difference in weigh it literally the weigh of a TI-83 calculator, I didn't think it was that significant at all considering the sacrifices made on the battery life.
Really don't get why people are willing to get a slightly lighter laptop for such drastic change in battery life. Imagine last year's body with the more efficient Skylake chips.
However, if they had just put new components in last year's model, than everybody on these threads would be complaining that Apple was a terrible company and that Tim should be fired for lack of innovation because nothing really changed because it didn't look any different.
And as an aside, I'm getting between 7-8 hours--at least for the moment--running simple stuff on my 13" TB base model. But that's just the estimate per the battery info drop down.
How about current design, last year dimensions and ports. The best of every world. I don't think any one was complaining the rMBP was too heavy or too thick, I still consider my 2008 unibody thin.
I was able to make a couple changes and I seem to be getting 10%/hour which I can live with. I always had the display at about 75% but I set the keyboard at 75% too, I think it defaults to 100 which I really don't need. I also shut off the auto brightness because this stuff bugs me on TV's anyway. I set my mail up to look for mail every 5 minutes (for some reason mail was near the top of the list for power consumption even though I hardly ever used it). After making these changes it was predicting 11 hours out the gate which I've never seen and I've averaged about 10%/hr which is twice as good as what I was seeing previously. We'll see how it holds up but seems like a significant improvement so far.
