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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, bu

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%.
  - techdragon 10y ago
    I've wanted a "lower minimum brightness" option on every apple product I've owned... with the exception of an iPod shuffle which has no screen.
  - leadingthenet 10y ago
    That's surprising. I actually think it's too dark, and always find myself cranking up the brightness everytime I switch workplaces.
    - tqkxzugoaupvwqr 10y ago
      He means in a dark room at night. I have the same complaint. When all other lights are turned off at night, the MacBook Pro screen, at minimum brightness, is still way too bright for my taste.
  - akvadrako 10y ago
    Check out brightness control: http://www.splasm.com/brightnesscontrol/index.html http://www.splasm.com/brightnesscontrol/index.html It works as long as I disable flux.
  - axxl 10y ago
    You can hold option-shift while adjusting the brightness (or volume) to get quarter increments. However it looks like it doesn't have any effect below the 1st level for brightness.
    - striking 10y ago
      If you open System Preferences, it has a handy little brightness slider. Just Option-<brightness> opens the right pane.
  - nkristoffersen 10y ago
    Flux should help in those dark situations :-)
  - nkristoffersen 10y ago
lukevers 10y ago
Same here. It was weird at first, but now I almost always use ~70-80% screen brightness now. Going full brightness starts to hurt if you're in a dark room too.

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%.
- techdragon 10y ago
  I've wanted a "lower minimum brightness" option on every apple product I've owned... with the exception of an iPod shuffle which has no screen.
- leadingthenet 10y ago
  That's surprising. I actually think it's too dark, and always find myself cranking up the brightness everytime I switch workplaces.
  - tqkxzugoaupvwqr 10y ago
    He means in a dark room at night. I have the same complaint. When all other lights are turned off at night, the MacBook Pro screen, at minimum brightness, is still way too bright for my taste.
- akvadrako 10y ago
  Check out brightness control: http://www.splasm.com/brightnesscontrol/index.html http://www.splasm.com/brightnesscontrol/index.html It works as long as I disable flux.
- axxl 10y ago
  You can hold option-shift while adjusting the brightness (or volume) to get quarter increments. However it looks like it doesn't have any effect below the 1st level for brightness.
  - striking 10y ago
    If you open System Preferences, it has a handy little brightness slider. Just Option-<brightness> opens the right pane.
- nkristoffersen 10y ago
  Flux should help in those dark situations :-)
- nkristoffersen 10y ago

lukevers 10y ago

Same here. It was weird at first, but now I almost always use ~70-80% screen brightness now. Going full brightness starts to hurt if you're in a dark room too.