Wondering about Touchbar battery life

[papahemi]

Hi there. Considering 13" mbp with touchbar or without. I'm wondering how much battery life is lost when opting for the touchbar model. Noticeable?

Also, seems like from comments around here touch id is a worthy add, but the touchbar not so much. Anyone feel differently? Thanks for your feedback.

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

It's OLED and is switches off after a while when not in use, also I believe the battery is slightly larger in the TB models to compensate. So in reality I don't think it's makes any difference.

 

[papahemi]

Hmm. According to apple's website the non touch bar mbp actually has a bigger battery: 54.5 watt hours vs 49.2. So I would assume about a 10% drop in run time, I suppose.

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

It doesn't really work that way, 10% would be an hours difference, a tiny OLED display isn't going to eat that much energy. As I said in reality it'll make near enough no difference so just get which one you need, you're probably looking at 8 hours vs 8:20 depending on use of the machine.

I personally find the TB useful, and more useful for changing basic settings like brightness/volume than static keys. The context area is sometimes useful depending on what you're doing, if all that you do is browse the internet then you won't get much use out of it for instance. But really depends on you and your use.

 

[papahemi]

That's helpful info, thanks a lot

 

[ugru]

The nonTB 13" is the only MBP that really delivers the advertised 10 hour battery life.

The 13" with TB has inferior capacity battery, as said above, and a more power hungry CPU, so way inferior battery life, a lot less than what Apple says.

 

[DougFNJ]

I was back and forth on it for awhile, and then opted for the TB. I've had it for a week now, and I do find it helpful in some apps, I think it will continue to improve as developers and Apple make it more customizable. Battery life has been fine, I am not finding a significant dip in battery life compared to 2015.