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anonymous4a

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 6, 2012
471
3
It seems like its an important factor for most people who buy a macbook pro so why don't they focus more on improving the battery life on macbook pros ? I thought there were going to be impressive gains with haswell and the energy saving features of mavericks , but its only an hour improvement over last years retina macbook pro. AND the new retina macbook 15" actually has a smaller battery than last years version ? Why not just have the same battery capacity size to get even better battery life ?
 
How much more battery life do you want and why?

I think the battery life is more than I would use in a day.
 
"Only" an hour while also having a better performing CPU.

Methinks someone needs to lower their expectations a wee bit. Not quite sure what you expected if the improvements don't seem worthwhile.
 
1. They do focus.
2. New 13" MBP has almost 30% longer battery life than the previous generation.
3. Mavericks has numerous energy saving features.
4. Battery size cannot be increased because laptop has to be portable and small.
5. Battery size also affects costs.
 
It could have gotten the insane battery life the MBA did, but Apple was all about increasing performance with the MBP. They made a good call.
 
"Only" an hour while also having a better performing CPU.

Methinks someone needs to lower their expectations a wee bit. Not quite sure what you expected if the improvements don't seem worthwhile.

It's not really a "better performing CPU." There's a new high end, but the new base and the old base models have comparable performance, and the new 2.3 performs similarly to the old 2.6/2.7.
 
It seems like its an important factor for most people who buy a macbook pro so why don't they focus more on improving the battery life on macbook pros ? I thought there were going to be impressive gains with haswell and the energy saving features of mavericks , but its only an hour improvement over last years retina macbook pro. AND the new retina macbook 15" actually has a smaller battery than last years version ? Why not just have the same battery capacity size to get even better battery life ?

Who says the late 2013 15" rMBP has a smaller battery than the last one? I don't think this is true.
 
It's not really a "better performing CPU." There's a new high end, but the new base and the old base models have comparable performance, and the new 2.3 performs similarly to the old 2.6/2.7.

The newer CPUs at similar and even slower clock speeds as the old ones perform better.

New 2.0GHz is faster than the old 2.4GHz. Not by much, but it is. Same goes for the other CPUs. The new 2.6 beats out my IvyBridge 2.7GHz by 7-8% and has 3x the maximum memory bandwidth of the IvyBridge CPU.

I stand by my statement. Both the low end and high-end models are faster.
 
Are you daft?

1) The 13" rMBP has a dramatically better battery life than the previous generation.

2) For the 15" rMBP, an extra hour of battery life with a smaller capacity battery is fantastic. You understand that they have to make engineering trade-offs between performance and battery life, right?

3) Most people don't need more than 8 hours of battery life. That gets you through an entire work day (with your computer constantly on). And is more than enough to fly across the US or from the east coast to Europe. If you want even more battery life, the 13" rMBP or 13" MBA can do that too.
 
Who says the late 2013 15" rMBP has a smaller battery than the last one? I don't think this is true.

It's not true, they still have a 95Wh LiPo battery, just like before. Perhaps the new battery is physically smaller, but that doesn't translate into less capacity.
 
It seems like its an important factor for most people who buy a macbook pro so why don't they focus more on improving the battery life on macbook pros ? I thought there were going to be impressive gains with haswell and the energy saving features of mavericks , but its only an hour improvement over last years retina macbook pro. AND the new retina macbook 15" actually has a smaller battery than last years version ? Why not just have the same battery capacity size to get even better battery life ?

Isn't that the whole point of Maverick? To help improve battery life. Even though I don't have a newer Mac, I have a 2010 unibody MB that now gets an additional 1-2 hours more on battery life. I mean that's enough for me honestly. Maybe the battery would be too big and since they want to make slimmer laptops it would defeat the purpose?
 
It's not really a "better performing CPU." There's a new high end, but the new base and the old base models have comparable performance, and the new 2.3 performs similarly to the old 2.6/2.7.
Isn't that by definition a gain? If the lower-end CPUs perform on par with what was before a higher-end addition, then we're getting the same (or better) performance out of a slightly cheaper product.

Of course, on the GPU side, things are a bit more complicated...
 
It seems like its an important factor for most people who buy a macbook pro so why don't they focus more on improving the battery life on macbook pros ? I thought there were going to be impressive gains with haswell and the energy saving features of mavericks , but its only an hour improvement over last years retina macbook pro. AND the new retina macbook 15" actually has a smaller battery than last years version ? Why not just have the same battery capacity size to get even better battery life ?

The battery in the 15" is the same capacity.

Improving battery life significantly with the 15" model would not be possible without sacrificing performance or portability. Researchers were actually saying that the 15" Retina would only gain a 3% battery life increase. Apple beat researcher's forecasts by a factor of 4.

The high powered intel CPU's are already optimized as far as they will go and the design is optimized very well too, what Apple did is they optimized the software to beat expectations.

With the MacBook Air what intel did is they built their ultra low power processors on ridiculously archaic hardware designs because they already used only a small amount of power. So the ultra low energy processors from intel used very inefficient technology, what Intel did was they updated the internals and this combined with other changes resulted in a major improvement in battery life.

Your expectations are basically ridiculous. Battery life is one of Apple's number one priorities and they spend billions of dollars trying to improve it.
 
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Hysterical. There isn't a laptop on the market that competes...in ANY size. I think you're (OP) thinking about the size reduction of the battery in the new iPad Air.

I'm using a pair of rMBPs from last year. They are now easily getting 7 hours with Mavericks. That's amazing. Must be the generational gap on the forum. Those of us that had 1.5-2hour batteries just 3-4 years ago may be a bit more appreciative of their 'actual innovation' during these past ten years....and since moving to Intel and working hand in hand with more and more powerful integrated graphic systems, a quick look at what they've managed to do with the MBA is proof. Pudding! The rMBP is made and sold as a performance machine. And to still achieve 8 hours of active use it's downright amazing to me

J
 
Apple sells style, not functionality. They create designs that allow them to brag about being thin and attractive in a feminine sort of way. "Sexy" is a word vast numbers of Apple followers love to use when bragging about their Apple gear. As such, it validates Apples vanity and fattens their coffers.
 
New 2.0GHz is faster than the old 2.4GHz. Not by much, but it is.

This is semantics. First off, comparing clock speeds from Ivy Bridge to Haswell is completely meaningless. That's like measuring one thing in inches and another thing in centimeters...well, maybe not that bad, but the same sort of silliness. Second, you're talking about a low single-digit percentage difference in benchmarked performance. Is that really an "improvement?" If you want to be literal, I guess, but for anyone in the real world, not so much. If calling it an improvement makes you feel better about your purchase, that's great.

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Isn't that by definition a gain? If the lower-end CPUs perform on par with what was before a higher-end addition, then we're getting the same (or better) performance out of a slightly cheaper product.

Of course, on the GPU side, things are a bit more complicated...

No, the 2.0 Haswell—which sells for $1999—performs within a couple percentage points with the 2.4 Ivy Bridge—which could be bought on Amazon and a number of other retailers before the keynote for $1999. Then an acceptable dGPU was taken out, and the things that were added were either small (PCIe) or future-oriented (802.11ac, TB2).

To me, that isn't a gain. But putting aside all the crap about the additions and subtractions, I think it's disingenuous to call these Haswell parts—at least the ones Apple's using and at the price points they're being offered—a step forward performance-wise. What Haswell was supposed to bring us was battery life, and the 15" models got a measly extra hour. To me, that was the disappointment.
 
Apple sells style, not functionality. They create designs that allow them to brag about being thin and attractive in a feminine sort of way. "Sexy" is a word vast numbers of Apple followers love to use when bragging about their Apple gear. As such, it validates Apples vanity and fattens their coffers.

Go away troll.
 
No, the 2.0 Haswell—which sells for $1999—performs within a couple percentage points with the 2.4 Ivy Bridge—which could be bought on Amazon and a number of other retailers before the keynote for $1999. Then an acceptable dGPU was taken out, and the things that were added were either small (PCIe) or future-oriented (802.11ac, TB2).

To me, that isn't a gain. But putting aside all the crap about the additions and subtractions, I think it's disingenuous to call these Haswell parts—at least the ones Apple's using and at the price points they're being offered—a step forward performance-wise. What Haswell was supposed to bring us was battery life, and the 15" models got a measly extra hour. To me, that was the disappointment.
I see you on both threads, haha. I understand where you're coming from about the base-level 15" and I agree. It seems Apple (and us, the consumers) expected Intel to really push the bar with integrated graphics. However, the Iris Pro really doesn't offer significant gains in performance compared to the previous-gen with a dGPU. Hopefully by the time Broadwell rolls out, things will be different.

Additionally, I am on the same page with you about the battery life. I really expected both the Haswell 13" and 15" to reach something more like 10-12 hours, than just 9 and 8 respectively. Although I think Apple downplayed those battery life improvements, because my higher-end 15" has been getting about 10 hours on a full charge with moderate usage. Either way, I'm very curious to see what Anand's battery testing shows vs. what Apple and other users on this forum claim.
 
Go away troll.

1) He wasn't trolling. I think there's some validity to his point.
2) I've been reported for calling someone a "troll" on these boards. I think the distinction between saying someone is trolling and calling them a troll is completely stupid, but the mods seem to disagree, so I mention this as something to keep in mind.

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Although I think Apple downplayed those battery life improvements, because my higher-end 15" has been getting about 10 hours on a full charge with moderate usage. Either way, I'm very curious to see what Anand's battery testing shows vs. what Apple and other users on this forum claim.

That's my hope, based on what you say here and others have said. And I guess that's the other thing I'm waiting to see out of Anand's review. Fingers crossed...
 
This is semantics. First off, comparing clock speeds from Ivy Bridge to Haswell is completely meaningless. That's like measuring one thing in inches and another thing in centimeters...well, maybe not that bad, but the same sort of silliness.

I'm not sure what makes you think I'm comparing clock speed, I'm not. A lot of people assume slower clock = slower CPU, all I'm saying is that across the board the new CPUs are faster than what they are replacing and they're doing it with a slower clock speed. The gap widens at the top end.

Second, you're talking about a low single-digit percentage difference in benchmarked performance. Is that really an "improvement?" If you want to be literal, I guess, but for anyone in the real world, not so much.

An 8% improvement in performance may be "small" to you, but it's really not that small to people that measure their workload in hours and not seconds.

Yes, it absolutely is an improvement and to get better performance AND longer battery life? Even better. Anyone that shrugs that off as "meh, no big deal" hasn't really though about what it really means.

Let's say someone is rendering a video that's a decent length and it takes 6 hours with the previous model. An 8% improvement knocks 30 minutes off. If they do 10 such videos per month then they save 5 hours, that's nearly an entire job's worth of time saved.

"But who's going to use a MBP for that kind of work?"

You'd be surprised. It may not be a big improvement to you, but it is an improvement. Period.

If calling it an improvement makes you feel better about your purchase, that's great.

Makes me feel better about my purchase of what? I think you're confused.
 
What Haswell was supposed to bring us was battery life, and the 15" models got a measly extra hour.
Wasn't that just living a dream based solely on rumours, hope and hype, without much factual support? Or any technological breakthrough in batteries or semiconductors?
It amazes me every time, how much hype precedes every Apple's product launch. Just to be followed by disappointment after the products materialize.
 
I'm not sure what makes you think I'm comparing clock speed, I'm not. A lot of people assume slower clock = slower CPU, all I'm saying is that across the board the new CPUs are faster than what they are replacing and they're doing it with a slower clock speed. The gap widens at the top end.
And only at the top end. The stock configurations are, as I said, within a few percentage points of each other.

An 8% improvement in performance may be "small" to you, but it's really not that small to people that measure their workload in hours and not seconds.
First off, you have no idea what I do for a living, or what my processing requirements are. Second, it's small in the context of the usual trajectory of model upgrades, and that was really my point.

Yes, it absolutely is an improvement and to get better performance AND longer battery life? Even better. Anyone that shrugs that off as "meh, no big deal" hasn't really though about what it really means.
I assure you, I've thought about it plenty. I've been posting about Haswell stuff for half a year now, including crunching through the numbers. I think it's a piss poor upgrade. A single digit CPU increase and a 14% battery time increase (when most of us were hoping for 9 hours, minimum) sucks, IMO. If you feel differently, fantastic for you.

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Wasn't that just living a dream based solely on rumours, hope and hype, without much factual support? Or any technological breakthrough in batteries or semiconductors?
It amazes me every time, how much hype precedes every Apple's product launch. Just to be followed by disappointment after the products materialize.

The hype wasn't just on Apple's side. PC media sources were lauding it in the first half of the year, too. How much of that was based on Intel's roadmap and formal statements from Intel? That I'm not sure, but it's an interesting question.
 
Wasn't that just living a dream based solely on rumours, hope and hype, without much factual support? Or any technological breakthrough in batteries or semiconductors?
It amazes me every time, how much hype precedes every Apple's product launch. Just to be followed by disappointment after the products materialize.

This is what Haswell achieved in Macbook Air - this was BEFORE Mavericks:

http://www.tekrevue.com/2013/07/28/pushing-it-to-the-limit-2013-macbook-air-battery-life-tests/
20130728_2013macbookairbatterytests.jpg


This is what Mavericks achieved:

https://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/2...p-to-15-hours-of-battery-life-with-mavericks/

batterylifetestsmavericks.jpg


Isn't that "factual support"? Isn't that worth a little hype?
 
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