4 ms·

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

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 the case when I switched to Macs years back.

greglindahl 10y ago
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...
- patryn20 10y ago
  My particular crime? Heavy VM use with multiple concurrent OSes and server processes.
  - greglindahl 10y ago
    Huh. I develop on a beefy server, and give everyone who works with me beefy servers, too.
    - patryn20 10y ago
      I'm often highly mobile with unreliable connectivity (think back country Alaska/Washington/Missouri/etc). Remoting is not a reliable option while traveling. Now when I'm working from home, I have other workstations I can connect to. And if the connectivity on the road is decent, I do have equipment I can connect to. However I generally find my most productive workflow is all local. Which is why I was doubly disappointed by the lack of upgrades to 7th gen i7 and 32GB of RAM. The battery life loss under load was just the straw that broke the camel's back.
      - greglindahl 10y ago
        Have you ever considered carrying a battery? You have the classic use-case for having one.
        patryn20 10y ago
        Actually I have been looking to buy one for extra on the road capacity. Really I'm just trying to decide what my work machine(s) will be moving forward. I think I'm going to limp by with my current MBPro and Dell Precision combo until the next MBPro refresh is out.
  - tracker1 10y ago
    Not sure what OSes you are using... but in the past, running a windows VM would be the main power drain of any laptop I'm using.
    - patryn20 10y ago
      When I run Windows in Parallels it DESTROYS battery life. I'm lucky to get 2 to 2 1/2 hours on my current MBP if I have my full toolchain and Windows running.
cthalupa 10y ago
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.
- patryn20 10y ago
  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.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    The new display gets a lot brighter, and physics means it'll take power to do it. At full brightness most of the idle power usage is running the backlight.
- snowwrestler 10y ago
  Mac laptops these days are built with backlights strong enough to compete with daylight. In typical working conditions, 100% is way overkill. For max long term comfort, your display should be no brighter than the ambient light levels. Otherwise--if the display is way brighter--your pupils will have to contract when you look at the screen, and dilate when you look away. Your pupils are controlled by muscles and like any muscles, they can get tired. I have a 2012 MacBook Air and I rarely have the brightness over 50% indoors. And the new MacBook Pros have way brighter screens. Sitting in my living room right now, my iPhone is at about 15% brightness.
  - Eric_WVGG 10y ago
    In a dark room I find the minimum brightness much too bright. Weird feature to wish for, but I think they need to crank the minimum brightness down by at least 25%.
dschuler 10y ago
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.
- patryn20 10y ago
  That's actual life. I never manage more than five hours while working on my current 2014 MBP 15". The loss of additional time under load on the 2016 was a deal killer for me.
retreatguru 10y ago
I had the same experience. I bought a 2016 MacBook Pro and with my usual work load of a VM, IDE and browser with 20+ tabs open battery life was worse than my 2011 MBP with its original battery. So I returned it. First apple return in 23 years.
Spooky23 10y ago
Are you using VMWare Fusion by chance? I've noticed lately in my 2 year old MacBook Pro that it just slays the battery when running, even when VMs are idle.
sedatk 10y ago
what brand/model is the windows laptop? they are usually worse than mbp in battery life so i'm curious.

greglindahl 10y ago

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...

patryn20 10y ago
My particular crime? Heavy VM use with multiple concurrent OSes and server processes.
- greglindahl 10y ago
  Huh. I develop on a beefy server, and give everyone who works with me beefy servers, too.
  - patryn20 10y ago
    I'm often highly mobile with unreliable connectivity (think back country Alaska/Washington/Missouri/etc). Remoting is not a reliable option while traveling. Now when I'm working from home, I have other workstations I can connect to. And if the connectivity on the road is decent, I do have equipment I can connect to. However I generally find my most productive workflow is all local. Which is why I was doubly disappointed by the lack of upgrades to 7th gen i7 and 32GB of RAM. The battery life loss under load was just the straw that broke the camel's back.
    - greglindahl 10y ago
      Have you ever considered carrying a battery? You have the classic use-case for having one.
      - patryn20 10y ago
        Actually I have been looking to buy one for extra on the road capacity. Really I'm just trying to decide what my work machine(s) will be moving forward. I think I'm going to limp by with my current MBPro and Dell Precision combo until the next MBPro refresh is out.
- tracker1 10y ago
  Not sure what OSes you are using... but in the past, running a windows VM would be the main power drain of any laptop I'm using.
  - patryn20 10y ago
    When I run Windows in Parallels it DESTROYS battery life. I'm lucky to get 2 to 2 1/2 hours on my current MBP if I have my full toolchain and Windows running.

cthalupa 10y ago

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.

patryn20 10y ago
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.
- rayiner 10y ago
  The new display gets a lot brighter, and physics means it'll take power to do it. At full brightness most of the idle power usage is running the backlight.
snowwrestler 10y ago
Mac laptops these days are built with backlights strong enough to compete with daylight. In typical working conditions, 100% is way overkill. For max long term comfort, your display should be no brighter than the ambient light levels. Otherwise--if the display is way brighter--your pupils will have to contract when you look at the screen, and dilate when you look away. Your pupils are controlled by muscles and like any muscles, they can get tired. I have a 2012 MacBook Air and I rarely have the brightness over 50% indoors. And the new MacBook Pros have way brighter screens. Sitting in my living room right now, my iPhone is at about 15% brightness.
- Eric_WVGG 10y ago
  In a dark room I find the minimum brightness much too bright. Weird feature to wish for, but I think they need to crank the minimum brightness down by at least 25%.

dschuler 10y ago

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.

patryn20 10y ago
That's actual life. I never manage more than five hours while working on my current 2014 MBP 15". The loss of additional time under load on the 2016 was a deal killer for me.

retreatguru 10y ago

I had the same experience. I bought a 2016 MacBook Pro and with my usual work load of a VM, IDE and browser with 20+ tabs open battery life was worse than my 2011 MBP with its original battery. So I returned it. First apple return in 23 years.

Spooky23 10y ago

Are you using VMWare Fusion by chance? I've noticed lately in my 2 year old MacBook Pro that it just slays the battery when running, even when VMs are idle.

sedatk 10y ago

what brand/model is the windows laptop? they are usually worse than mbp in battery life so i'm curious.