Live data from Hacker News

New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

macdaddy.io

161–170 of 224 posts

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#161

> Reducing mA (power draw) rather than increasing mAh (power storage) is the most effective way to increase battery life, which would go a long way to explain manufacturers’ obsession with thinness (which, in electrical terms often directly translates efficiency (i.e., smallness)) in their devices rather than just giving us something that endures. I think it goes the other way; the manufacturers' obsession with thinn…

well based on weight and size current generation laptops from Dell, Apple, and others, still has being doing a double take when picking up my laptop bag; as in is it in there?

I think the battle over thinness and weight was well worth it but the next battle is getting workflow to work in a full touch screen interface similar to the surface pro do and not he half ass move Apple made with that touch bar. Applications and imagination are holding that up. I do not expect keyboards to ever go away completely but pointing devices are another thing entirely

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#162
post #4

Very happy to hear that idle is better. Very unhappy to hear that usage is worse. I would prefer not to think about my usage patterns and just sit back knowing my new laptop (2016 mbp) is always better than my old (2015 mbp) one in all cases.

The first generation "Retina" machines were not without their drawbacks either, but those were ironed out quickly enough. If you update every single year you'll be intimately aware of these problems. If, like most, you're on a 3-5 year cycle it's largely irrelevant. People used to buy cars every two to three years as well, but now it's common to retain them for a lot longer unless you're leasing.

If you are on a 3–5 year cycle it is relevant because you would be stuck with it for 3–5 years. Unless you like the hassle of migrating to your new MacBook Pro, test it for a week, and then return it. If you are unlucky, you can’t migrate back because the newly upgraded macOS, iTunes library or Photos library is not compatible with your old macOS, iTunes library or Photos library. So you won’t be able to migrate back or open your libraries.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#163
post #127
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain to me how complicated and demanding is the workflow of these "salespeople, real estate agents, pediatricians and beer distributors (!)" that you talk about? What exactly is stopping them from getting the smaller 12" MacBook? Or the infinite other ultrabooks available now? Something called the "Pro", and something that costs a pretty penny, shouldn't just cater to the ones out and about and only needing…

I'm a writer, and I consider myself a "pro" in that field. I don't really need the power of the Macbook Pro, but I do need a larger retina screen. The Macbook Pro is really the only laptop Apple makes at the moment that fits my needs. I'm not sure why people who need high performance are so sniffy and condescending about those who don't. A requirement for massive computer resources doesn't make the work more valuable…

>I'm not sure why people who need high performance are so sniffy and condescending about those who don't.

I submit that it's because the people in one camp feel that Apple screwed them in order to cater to people in the second camp. The people in the first camp are sick of hearing how the MBP is adequate for the people in the second camp, and are projecting a little bit.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#164
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> at least for professionals? Professional whats? Executives, salespeople, real estate agents, pediatricians, beer distributors - all of these people are professionals, and all of them can and do benefit from smaller and lighter computing power. Clearly your idea of a professional is someone who is chained to a desk writing code or processing complex 3D graphics. No question those are professional uses as well, but t…

I see no reason why any of those people benefit from the slightly thinner form of the new mbp than they would benefit from better battery life. Everyone wants batteries that last longer. How often did you look at your last generation mbp and wish it was thinner?

I cycle with my MBP on my back every day. I also develop backend apps using VMs and need processing power. I bought the 15" MBP because this time around it was light enough for me. A year ago I would have got the 13", and been sad that I didn't have a bigger screen or faster machine.

Make of that what you will, but we exist.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#165

I think a lot of people are talking about the new MBP as if they had one. It's 2017 and a too many power users still base their opinion simply on specs divination -- that is, theoretical musings about this and that component will perform. Especially with Apple, it should be clear that the whole thing is much more complicated than a 1+1 based on a spec list.

I think that's been clear to anyone without their head in the sand for a while now.

It's the same with iOS vs. Android. Early Android proponents did nothing but talk up the specs and the "customizability". The reality is, iPhones have always had such great hardware/software integration that they made using touch screens feel like you were interacting with the UI physically. You press a button, the phone almost immediately responded. A lot of this was the use of capacitive touch screen, but there was a lot more to it. It took years for Android to get close to this point, and I honestly think Apple still does it better.

Why do I need 4GB of RAM on my phone, when 1GB runs every app I want it to and gives me a lag free experience in the rest of the OS?

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#166

Until you steam a video or play a game, like Civilization or XCom (from 2012). Then the battery just dies at a near 1% per minute rate. "Great battery! ... until you actually go to do something that uses power." I did a side by side test and the battery on my new MBP lasts the same as my 2013 MBP for streaming conference calls -- under 2 hours for both. (I had them call each other with cameras aimed at each other whi…

Have you updated the OS? I found battery to be a problem on my 15" until 10.12.3, wherein it's much improved.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#167
post #88
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I think heat dissipation is often overlooked while making a buying decision. Regarding overall portability, I think the 13 inch MacBook air is a good compromise. The new 13 inch MacBook pro is about the same weight, but obviously a lot more powerful, and is smaller in dimensions. It's a breeze to work on planes with this machine. I'd rather see the next iteration of MacBook Pros with better heat dissipation a…

Thinner implies a better ratio of surface area to volume for dissipating heat. Though, I suppose a laptop could be thicker by including empty space with fans and airflow to exhaust the heat out the sides rather than conducting it through the surfaces touched by users.

You don't increase the surface area of a laptop by making it thinner.

Sure the ratio changes, but I'm not sure how that is relevant.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#168
post #135

When I bring my 2016 MBP into the office, it runs out of battery near the end of the day, and I have to plug it in for those final 2 or 3 hours. Very satisfied. My colleague with a new Surface Book has been shaking his fist at me, wishing he hadn't listened to the FUD and left the Applesphere. Apparently he gets frustratingly bad battery life on his SB. (To be fair, though, the SB's display ejection hardware is just…

Seriously, why would battery life even matter if you are sitting in the office all day?? With that said, SB can easily do 10-12 hours once you turn off the always-on camera: https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/3qxjrk/fix_battery...

> Seriously, why would battery life even matter if you are sitting in the office all day??

Do you people chain yourselves to your desk the entire day? My office has a the "open-office" trend, which pretty much prompts me to leave and to go various parts of the office during the day, or maybe even the library, and only come back in for meetings.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#169

> Reducing mA (power draw) rather than increasing mAh (power storage) is the most effective way to increase battery life, which would go a long way to explain manufacturers’ obsession with thinness (which, in electrical terms often directly translates efficiency (i.e., smallness)) in their devices rather than just giving us something that endures. I think it goes the other way; the manufacturers' obsession with thinn…

> at least for professionals? Professional whats? Executives, salespeople, real estate agents, pediatricians, beer distributors - all of these people are professionals, and all of them can and do benefit from smaller and lighter computing power. Clearly your idea of a professional is someone who is chained to a desk writing code or processing complex 3D graphics. No question those are professional uses as well, but t…

You're conflating a 'professional' as a white-collar job classification, and a 'professional' computer user.

The macbook pro is a computer for professional computer users.

A professional philosophy professor has no need of a macbook pro, a professional video-editor does.

Being a 'professional; in your white-collar classification, doesn't imply that you're a professional computer user.

It's not an insular definition, it's a specific definition.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#170

I love the new 2016 MBP, and after using it think most of the purported issues are BS. That said, there is one very real issue that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere: because of how thin they are, many of the minor issues that could previously be fixed in the Apple Store now require sending it out. I had an intermittently working key on my keyboard and took it in for something I assumed would take half an hour to fix…

Three fingers drag is buggy on the new trackpad. Control strip is buggy, especially when using external monitors. The software is not able to adequately deal with external monitors being connected and disconnected throughout the day.

I've found this too - connecting an external monitor messes up some of my Touchbar functionality until I restart the whole laptop.
Post reply on HN