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New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

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Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#141

Post by hultner »

rz2k wrote: post #92
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new MacBook Pro charges very, very quickly, 10 to 80% in 20-30 minutes by my estimation. I can count on running off the battery all day as long as I can get it plugged in while I fetch a sandwich for lunch.

Do you know if it will slow charge from a low power usb power source? If I plug mine into a 2 amp usb A charger it says that it is not charging, but does that mean it is drawing zero watts, or only that it is only drawing 10 watts? It would be nice to charge it overnight if only a phone charger happens to be around, or even just slow down the discharge rate while using the laptop.

I've charged my 15" Touchbar MBP with a 2 amp charger and a USB-A -> USB-C charger. Both used it for overnight charing and while plugged in (when using it plugged in it wouldn't draw battery but it wouldn't charge it either, maybe even drawing battery very slowly).

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#142

Post by hultner »

dogecoinbase wrote: post #100
rz2k wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know if it will slow charge from a low power usb power source? If I plug mine into a 2 amp usb A charger it says that it is not charging, but does that mean it is drawing zero watts, or only that it is only drawing 10 watts? It would be nice to charge it overnight if only a phone charger happens to be around, or even just slow down the discharge rate while using the laptop.

It does -- I travel with a 12" Macbook and the Google 15W USB-C charger. Take about 3 hours to charge from <10% to full.

Where would one buy this charger? Would be great as a travel charger if it works well, I currently use my iPad charger but a 50% power boost would come greatly appreciated.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#143

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

rusk wrote: post #126
spiderfarmer wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a consultancy job I carry two notebooks around. A company provided Lenovo laptop and Macbook pro. Would love to have a lighter laptop, without resorting to cheap plastic. I don't want a smaller screen as I can't connect external monitors there and my eyes are not that great. I love the fact that I don't have to carry a charger for the Macbook, even after 2 years of usage it still runs long enough to last a workda…

> even after 2 years of usage Okay so its not the new Macbook we're talking about here. I think I may have the same one, I bought it in 2014 and I love it. It still takes everything I throw at it, and it connects to everything. Full SSD which I was wary of at first but once you get used to no moving parts - which don't break - it's hard to imagine going back to clunky spinning platters. I'd be hard pressed to go for…

I think Apple has devolved into middle aged middle manager computing. Photos of the kids and the holidays are nice, videos are nice, being able to buy music and movies is nice, oh, and maybe some popular games.

Look, it plays Angry Birds and that thing with the cars - what more could anyone want?

And there's a text and presentation editor, and a spreadsheet, because those are super important.

I'd guess there's no one to represent any of the pro user communities in Cupertino any more at the top levels. There's certainly no passion for making beautiful, creative tools any more.

I still like the hardware - the iPad Pro is a favourite in this house, and I'm enjoying a new MacBook - but how I wish someone could give MacOS software like iTunes and Photos a kick up the ass to make it awesome instead of eccentric and annoying.

And how I wish Apple would open up to all the creative communities and start listening to what pro users want, instead of telling us that we don't really need what we used to have and we should - y'know - just get over ourselves.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#144

Post by raarts »

garrettgrimsley wrote: post #103
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sloshed a bit of coffee on my keyboard, first such fck-up in over fifteen years. They want $620 to rub wipe the coffee off and put the keys back in place (they sent a photo). I'm praying that tomorrow morning I can talk them into mailing it back to uncleaned but still disassembled and let me pop them back in place....

Did they tell you that they were going to just wipe the coffee off and put it back together? I used to do Apple repairs and the $620 sounds in line with a full upper clamshell w/ keyboard replacement. Just "rub wiping" the coffee off wouldn't be satisfactory since you can't reach all of the places that the coffee penetrated, even with a full keyboard teardown.

I just had the full upper clamshell plus the keyboard replaced of my MBA 2013. Cost me ~$320. They even threw in a free battery replacement.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#145

Post by HNLogInShit »

dperfect wrote: post #41

> 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…

Nobody, not even "bloggers" are "going nuts" about thinness. Thinness is a pathetically played-out gimmick with which Apple continues to embarrass itself and hideously degrade its products.

The glued-together computers with soldered-in RAM, soldered-in SSDs, and chintzy, shitty keyboards (at ever-higher prices) serve NO ONE. Nobody was complaining that Apple's products were "too thick."

Jony Ive should be fired. His ideas revolve around new ways to eliminate usefulness, and the public has voted his designs a failure. How do we know? The vast majority of customers bury their "thin, elegant" iPhones in a bulky, tacky case. And then they carry a power brick and wad of wire around, so they can beg bartenders to plug their phones in (or crawl under tables to do so themselves). It's sad.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#146

Post by HNLogInShit »

scarface74 wrote: post #70
M_Grey wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then, irony of ironies, people put their ultra-thin devices in cases to protect them, carry multiple batteries for them, or external charging bricks, and my favorite... the oversized extended battery. Throws hands up in air

I can't speak for laptops but I can speak for the utility of having a thin phone and a battery pack that makes it thicker and heavier than it would be if Apple just included a bigger battery: I've only used my battery pack four or five times in the year and a half I've had my 6s. Most of the time I'm not far away from a plug - either at home, in my car, at work, etc. But when I travel, a slightly bigger battery would…

That is lame apologism. "Most of the time I'm not far away from a plug." Are you kidding? Listen to the excuses you're making for being ripped off. This is a MOBILE device, but it can neither serve its primary purpose much of the time or withstand being used for it without a ridiculous case.

The original iPhone was plenty thin by TODAY'S standards. And I carry my phone in my back pocket.

Stop making excuses for defective design.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#147

Post by rimantas »

arviewer wrote: post #140
Veen wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 don't mind that Apple offers very thin laptops that limit battery life, and make it impossible to change harddisks or add memory. The Macbook Air was the first, and it was great as it was. If there is a market for this, whether for professionals or not, they should sell them as much as then can. I do mind that they don't offer at least one good alternative that is "programmer pro": harddisk can be changed, RAM can…

I am a programmer and changing RAM/disk/replaceable batteries are not on my list of things I need for work.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#148

Post by kogepathic »

konstruktors wrote: post #128

It's 76Wh in 2016 vs 99Wh in 2015 -- a 24% smaller battery. To have the same battery time, it must draw 24% less current than it did with the 2015 model. Secondly, we should always compare watts instead of amps unless we know the batteries have the exact same voltages. For example, for a battery life of 18h it must draw 4.2W on average (76Wh/18h). I don't think that's possible because only the 2016 MacBook uses that…

Let's compare the numbers quoted by the author:

619mA * 11.1V = 6.87W

430mA * 11.1V = 4.77W

So it's the difference of about 2 watts between the 2015 MBP and the 2016 MBP, or roughly 30% less consumption.

> I’m impressed that the new MBP will happily sit at a 500 mA power draw for long stretches of time.

It's virtually useless to tell people the amount of current something is using without also mentioning the voltage. I don't know why the author is discussing this in terms of current instead of watts.

5W isn't overly impressive for a laptop. My 2012 Dell (admittedly without retina display, but with 5 year old components) idles in Linux at ~7W with the brightness at 50%. If you close the lid to turn off the display, this will drop to 5W.

So, 5 years, a HDPI display, and Apple is down to 5W.

Anyone with a Dell XPS 13 or XPS 15 who can comment on power consumption? I'm not overly impressed by this number from Apple, it seems par for the course for Intel hardware over the past few years.

The biggest problem for laptop battery life is Windows. My Dell came with Windows 7 and I wouldn't get 3 hours on the 6 cell battery (65Wh). I installed Linux on it and now I can get 6-7 hours comfortably.

Maybe Windows 10 has improved this somewhat, but Windows 7 is terribad for laptop battery life.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#149

Post by NTripleOne »

tmd83 wrote: post #97
qeternity wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These people are lugging their laptop around all day, from meeting to meeting, or airport to airport. If you can keep battery life constant at ca. 10 hours, which covers an extended work day, then beyond that most people would prefer to have lighter/slimmer/cooler (less hot) devices than one that runs for 20 hours.

I can agree on lighter, cooler or even smaller (in length/width) but really slimmer? As I said in another thread, what does a slimmer laptop gives you in present day.

Bend potential.

Edit: Evidently the downvotes have proven that thinner devices do not lead to increased risk of bend damage.

Re: New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining

#150

Post by pmontra »

dperfect wrote: post #41

> 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…

Anecdotally, a customer of mine had to replace his MacBook and bought the new one with the OLED strip. He says that the battery lasts about the same as the old one. The only difference he felt is the USB-C connectors and the need to have a dongle for everything. He's not happy about that.
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