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New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

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11–20 of 224 posts

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#11
post #2

Everyone talks about the downsides of the new MacBooks. No one talks about about how they reduced the size of the internal battery by 30%, effectively added a second screen, improved overall performance, and still kept the same battery life.

*I was incorrect and noted normal macbooks, not MBP. Normal macbooks are terrible in price to performance, MBP is better, ignoring all the other things about it.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#12
post #9

Based on my (admittedly unusual) workloads, the effective charge time of the 2016 is awful. I already only get 4-5 hours out of a 2014 MBP. I bought a 2016 and only managed 3 1/2 hours. Maybe they've improved that with some software fixes, but it's still a non starter. So I returned it. I know I'm not a typical user, but I get much better battery life (with lower productivity) out of my windows laptop. Which was not…

I get a pretty good runtime out of my 12" MB, and, I found that the tools Apple provides to diagnose power usage were pretty god. Every time I see a complaint like this I always wonder what the cause is...

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#13
post #9

Based on my (admittedly unusual) workloads, the effective charge time of the 2016 is awful. I already only get 4-5 hours out of a 2014 MBP. I bought a 2016 and only managed 3 1/2 hours. Maybe they've improved that with some software fixes, but it's still a non starter. So I returned it. I know I'm not a typical user, but I get much better battery life (with lower productivity) out of my windows laptop. Which was not…

Are you controlling for the screen having a higher maximum brightness?

I thought I was getting much worse battery life on my new MBP compared to my old one, but then I paid attention to screen brightness - when I level match the screens to the same level of brightness, I get the same battery life as my older one.

I'm used to just jamming the screen to 100% brightness, so I've had to get used to keep it around 70% or so.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#14
post #9

Based on my (admittedly unusual) workloads, the effective charge time of the 2016 is awful. I already only get 4-5 hours out of a 2014 MBP. I bought a 2016 and only managed 3 1/2 hours. Maybe they've improved that with some software fixes, but it's still a non starter. So I returned it. I know I'm not a typical user, but I get much better battery life (with lower productivity) out of my windows laptop. Which was not…

I get a pretty good runtime out of my 12" MB, and, I found that the tools Apple provides to diagnose power usage were pretty god. Every time I see a complaint like this I always wonder what the cause is...

My particular crime? Heavy VM use with multiple concurrent OSes and server processes.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#16
post #2

Everyone talks about the downsides of the new MacBooks. No one talks about about how they reduced the size of the internal battery by 30%, effectively added a second screen, improved overall performance, and still kept the same battery life.

*I was incorrect and noted normal macbooks, not MBP. Normal macbooks are terrible in price to performance, MBP is better, ignoring all the other things about it.

When I say MacBooks... I mean the MacBook Pros. As in, what this article is talking about. Apple never reduced the size of the MB battery by 30%. Or added a second screen. Or kept performance they same (they improved performance gen-over-gen with the MB). Use your head. Apply some context.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#17
post #9

Based on my (admittedly unusual) workloads, the effective charge time of the 2016 is awful. I already only get 4-5 hours out of a 2014 MBP. I bought a 2016 and only managed 3 1/2 hours. Maybe they've improved that with some software fixes, but it's still a non starter. So I returned it. I know I'm not a typical user, but I get much better battery life (with lower productivity) out of my windows laptop. Which was not…

Are you controlling for the screen having a higher maximum brightness? I thought I was getting much worse battery life on my new MBP compared to my old one, but then I paid attention to screen brightness - when I level match the screens to the same level of brightness, I get the same battery life as my older one. I'm used to just jamming the screen to 100% brightness, so I've had to get used to keep it around 70% or…

To be honest no, I didn't. But I also don't generally change my screen brightness. So I'm not sure I ever even checked what it was at on the 2016.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#18
I will attribute this to Intel's advances and focus in low power processors, not much credit goes to Apple in my mind.

The Macbook pro 2014 used Haswell processors which are notably more power hungry on idle than Broadwell and its successor Skylake, as Intel really focused on power draw with Broadwell.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#19
post #9

Based on my (admittedly unusual) workloads, the effective charge time of the 2016 is awful. I already only get 4-5 hours out of a 2014 MBP. I bought a 2016 and only managed 3 1/2 hours. Maybe they've improved that with some software fixes, but it's still a non starter. So I returned it. I know I'm not a typical user, but I get much better battery life (with lower productivity) out of my windows laptop. Which was not…

You mean the battery life is less than for the previous generation, or that it takes longer to charge?

While Apple seems to improve idle power efficiency, not much is or can be done about high CPU workloads, but decreasing battery capacity doesn't help at all.

My 2012 MPBr shows ~94Wh capacity from System Report. I know they've changed battery sizes several times since then - down to ~75Wh, then more again.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get a pretty good runtime out of my 12" MB, and, I found that the tools Apple provides to diagnose power usage were pretty god. Every time I see a complaint like this I always wonder what the cause is...

My particular crime? Heavy VM use with multiple concurrent OSes and server processes.

Huh. I develop on a beefy server, and give everyone who works with me beefy servers, too.
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