Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Speculations on upcoming 2013 rMBP 13 battery life

N

nyc999

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 6, 2011
121
13
Do you think it will be 12 hours like the mba? Although the retina screen and processor will eat more juice compared to the mba, they can fit in a larger battery to compensate. Or do you think it will be more like 10 hours?

I would totally get the MBA right now if it weren't for the lack of retina. I am not sure if I should wait for the rMBP...I have a lot of school/work related books on pdf that I read on my computer and retina would be nice but dunno if I should wait till october or whenever they release it.
 
And Macbook Air isn't 12 hours all the time
http://www.macworld.com/article/2042376/lab-tested-new-macbook-air-offers-best-battery-life-of-any-apple-laptop.html

So expect actual battery life to be... pretty darn close to the older model.
 
Definitely in the ballpark of 24hrs. Haswell is a magical chip made in the silicon heavens. :D:D:D:D
 
Stetrain said:
And neither is the current rMBP 7 hours all the time. So going from 7 hours of stated battery to 10-12 hours of stated battery is still a percentage improvement.

Of course your actual battery life, before or after the improvement, depends on your usage.
Click to expand...

What he said below:

hammm said:
Definitely in the ballpark of 24hrs. Haswell is a magical chip made in the silicon heavens. :D:D:D:D
Click to expand...

Seriously, though, Haswell really isn't so magical that it can boost the rMBP from 7 hours to 10-12 hours. You can't apply Macbook Air logic here.
 
bill-p said:
What he said below:



Seriously, though, Haswell really isn't so magical that it can boost the rMBP from 7 hours to 10-12 hours. You can't apply Macbook Air logic here.
Click to expand...

But I'm sure it will be at least a 1-2 hour boost, which would be noticeable.
 
PDFierro said:
But I'm sure it will be at least a 1-2 hour boost, which would be noticeable.
Click to expand...

Yeah, for light load it may increase battery life by 1-2 hours.

But start doing things (Photoshop and such) and things may level out.

And the boost may be even less pronounced on the 15".
 
I honestly can't see why we wouldn't get 12 hours just like the air did? new energy efficient processors just like in the air coupled with optimised mavericks software and maybe some more wattages in the physical battery and boooooom.
 
OMGwtfBBQwings said:
I honestly can't see why we wouldn't get 12 hours just like the air did? new energy efficient processors just like in the air coupled with optimised mavericks software and maybe some more wattages in the physical battery and boooooom.
Click to expand...

Nope. The Retina screen uses up way more power/battery. Just look at how big the battery is in the rMBP compared to the Air.
 
PDFierro said:
Nope. The Retina screen uses up way more power/battery. Just look at how big the battery is in the rMBP compared to the Air.
Click to expand...

And also because the Macbook Air chips really are far more efficient than the old ones.

The one that's going into the rMBP is just marginally more power efficient... (or not at all in the case of the 15")
 
OMGwtfBBQwings said:
I understand that, but then again look at the current battery hour of 7 even with the retina display.
Click to expand...

What about it? How do you expect it to get 30% more battery efficient? Macbook air, with Haswell, got ~50% more efficient. MBPr's screen uses more than 2x more battery than MBA. So we're down to 25% from 50%. Also, Haswell, has a limited effect on battery consumption, some have said up to 30%. So that brings it down to ~20%. Then scale in how much less of an effect it would have compared to other specs previously in the 15' MBP already, and you're down to ~15%. So 9-10 hours is my guess.
 
VanillaCracker said:
What about it? How do you expect it to get 30% more battery efficient? Macbook air, with Haswell, got ~50% more efficient. MBPr's screen uses more than 2x more battery than MBA. So we're down to 25% from 50%. Also, Haswell, has a limited effect on battery consumption, some have said up to 30%. So that brings it down to ~20%. Then scale in how much less of an effect it would have compared to other specs previously in the 15' MBP already, and you're down to ~15%. So 9-10 hours is my guess.
Click to expand...

Fun fact: ~15% more efficient than 7 hours is just 8 hours.

9-10 hours requires close to 30-40% efficiency.
 
I'm honestly going to be happy with whatever improvement we get. Even if it's only an hour or 2 extra, that's a huge difference IMO.

Around 10 hours would be great, but I sure won't complain about 8 or 9.
 
nyc999 said:
I am hoping you are wrong...would be nice to have 10+ hours.
Click to expand...

I mean based on how apple usually does things, it would seem unlikely that they would only get a 1-2 hour bump. Generally speaking, if they're going to work on something, like battery life, they make significant margins, or don't work it at all (from what I've seen in the past). So since the MBA's show it, plus obviously haswell incorporation, it would seem like maybe 10 hours or more would be expected. But Just logistically speaking, it seems like sort of a stretch.

But the more I think about it, the more it seems almost impossible for them to keep the dGPU this time around. Because battery life is almost certainly their goal, and also the gap between the 650M and the next "reasonable" dGPU is too far, plus the case for the MBPr really can't take any more heat output. So all of these things just make it seem so obvious they'd go iGPU. Sorry, side comment I guess.
 
VanillaCracker said:
I mean based on how apple usually does things, it would seem unlikely that they would only get a 1-2 hour bump. Generally speaking, if they're going to work on something, like battery life, they make significant margins, or don't work it at all (from what I've seen in the past). So since the MBA's show it, plus obviously haswell incorporation, it would seem like maybe 10 hours or more would be expected. But Just logistically speaking, it seems like sort of a stretch.

But the more I think about it, the more it seems almost impossible for them to keep the dGPU this time around. Because battery life is almost certainly their goal, and also the gap between the 650M and the next "reasonable" dGPU is too far, plus the case for the MBPr really can't take any more heat output. So all of these things just make it seem so obvious they'd go iGPU. Sorry, side comment I guess.
Click to expand...

They can make it 10+ hours by doing a few "tricks"...

1) Optimize software so that the CPU and iGPU can spend a lot more time idling than they do now. Thing is, though, software optimizations also benefit the older line, and... I'm indeed getting 7-8 hours more consistently with my 2012 rMBP 15" on Mavericks DP4. So in the end, even if Haswell gets 10+ hours, the old line may get close to 10 either way. And then there's still the dGPU and hundreds of dollars of price difference (between a new Haswell model and an old refurb) to consider.

2) Condense board space so that they can put in a bigger battery. This is possible on the 13" rMBP since you can tell from the dissecting videos that the 13" has a huge space (that fits a 2.5" drive) underneath the trackpad. Plus the 13" is sure to get a more power efficient chip (28W vs 35W), so the gain would be obvious. But the 15" rMBP is already hella cramped as it is, due to the gigantic battery (95WHr). And the 15" isn't getting a more power efficient CPU (47W vs 45W), so it's a harder bet.

3) A bit of a stretch, but they may have custom-ordered Haswell chips that are more power-efficient from Intel for the 15" as well. It's clear that even if they overclock Iris Pro, it would still lose out to the old 650M in a lot of cases. In that case, they might well turn around and concentrate more on battery life instead. Maybe underclock the Iris Pro chip so that it performs slightly slower, but then that allows the whole thing to be more power efficient. Then they can reduce cooling, and if there's less cooling, there's more space on the board for them to expand the battery. As above, the 13" definitely has more room for a bigger battery. So that's a done deal for the 13". But the 15" may need to cut corners in order to bump its battery capacity beyond that massive 95WHr, and I can't think of any other way than to shave off the size of the fans. But as stated, this is a bit of a stretch.

So my conclusion: 10+ hours is definitely possible with the 13" model, but it may not be possible with the 15" model.
 
bill-p said:
Fun fact: ~15% more efficient than 7 hours is just 8 hours.

9-10 hours requires close to 30-40% efficiency.
Click to expand...

Assuming everything else in the 13" rMBP is the same as the old model :p
If there have been any kind of battery improvements we could see somewhere around 9 or 10 hours. But I agree, as of now I speculate around 8 or 9 hours max.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back