Battery Life on MacBook Pro 16.

[jkoul]

I am lucky to get 4hrs. All i do is use Outlook, surf the web and use slack. How is this OK? Surely, there will be a software update to rectify this. This can't be normal?

I don't wan't to send the machine back, its great otherwise -- but, a 4hr battery life is just unusable.

 

[ascender]

You also have to factor in things like how many photos are in your iCloud library - I think Photo's analysis/synching thing too about 4 days to finish for me. So its always worth checking activity monitor and also what's using significant power.

If I'm not doing anything intensive, I'll easily get 10 hours out of the 16".

 

[matram]

On my 16", with only light browsing (this forum), system power draw is shown as between 4 - 6 Watt. Remaining time on battery is estimated to more than 16 hours.

 

[joelhinch]

This sounds really bad. One hour to get from 100% to 0%?

Under load yep, percentage drops a percent in less than a minute.

 

[kp98077]

I get about 2.5 hrs from just web browsing (only safari open 5 tabs). 1 week old 2.4 Ghz i9\64GB\5500M 8GB\2TB. Have to say I'me pretty disappointed. Anything with a bit of load I get about an hour.

id return that one.....

 

[-narcan-]

On my 16", with only light browsing (this forum), system power draw is shown as between 4 - 6 Watt. Remaining time on battery is estimated to more than 16 hours.

How is this even possible ? My week old 16" (i9) with Safari open, and brightness at 50% says has 4:05 remaining at 80%. It's a clean install, and Spotlight isn't running etc. Are you doing anything else to get that sort of battery life ?

 

[tjedora]

Brightness on 50%, battery fully charged, browsing this forum in Safari and having Mail open, power usage is shown at 3-8 Watt. Time remaining at approx. 13.5 hours according to Battery Health 3. (i9 2,3 GHz model here)

 

[-narcan-]

power usage is shown at 3-8 Watt.

Where do you see that ?

 

[tjedora]

I use Battery Health 3 for those information:

They have a 3 day trial for the app. So probably perfect for a quick check.

 

[joelhinch]

Edit: Already answered.

 

[joelhinch]

Brightness on 50%, battery fully charged, browsing this forum in Safari and having Mail open, power usage is shown at 3-8 Watt. Time remaining at approx. 13.5 hours according to Battery Health 3. (i9 2,3 GHz model here)

Safari open, 2 tabs, 70% brightness, Battery Health 3 says 14w draw. 4hrs remaining. 99% battery.

 

[CheesePuff]

So on 95% I have around 4 hours is still okay?

This screen shot shows you are using the high performance (AMD) GPU, which will eat up a lot of battery compared to using the integrated Intel graphics.

 

[-narcan-]

After a full charge, and just safari open with 2 tabs this is my current battery state.

Sounds like I should be taking it back if I'm not seeing 12 - 16 hours remaining ?

 

[joelhinch]

View attachment 879599

After a full charge, and just safari open with 2 tabs this is my current battery state.

Sounds like I should be taking it back if I'm not seeing 12 - 16 hours remaining ?

That’s a lot better than mine. What’s your machines specs? I’m wondering if my 64GB RAM chews up a lot more power. Might return this for 2.3/32gb/5500m 8GB/1TB. Only getting 3hrs is horrible on my current model.

 

[JustHereforHelp69]

That’s a lot better than mine. What’s your machines specs? I’m wondering if my 64GB RAM chews up a lot more power. Might return this for 2.3/32gb/5500m 8GB/1TB. Only getting 3hrs is horrible on my current model.

Im currently transcoding a movie through ffmpeg, but I will check back with my battery health 3 stats later when I download it. I have the same exact build as you, antecdoltty though I can say though I have been experiencing very good battery unless I am doing what I am currently doing.

 

[BeatWilson]

yeah, im gonna return mine i think and wait for the update 13/14 inch model. I will just use it for music. at this point, using a macbook for video editing is good, but building your own desktop pc is just alot better and cheaper.

 

[joelhinch]

Im currently transcoding a movie through ffmpeg, but I will check back with my battery health 3 stats later when I download it. I have the same exact build as you, antecdoltty though I can say though I have been experiencing very good battery unless I am doing what I am currently doing.

You have the 2.4/64gb/550M 8gb/2TB ? or 2.3/32gb/5500m 8GB/1TB

 

[JustHereforHelp69]

You have the 2.4/64gb/550M 8gb/2TB ? or 2.3/32gb/5500m 8GB/1TB

I have the 2.4/64/5500M 8GB/2TB. This is what I got with battery health, it has been all over the place with its Current Max but it has always been below its designed 8790

I took this with like 8 chrome tabs open (a combination of youtube, this forum, and various newsites), telegram up in another desktop as well as terminal in that same desktop. I would continue to monitor your computer and I will do the same. I will let you know if anything changes on my end

 

[iemcj]

It's fine! You will see this figure improve when all the background indexing are finished. I would suggest to plug-in your MBP to accelerate the background setup activities.

Shouldn't that be pretty quick though considering the crazy fast ssd? I can't imagine that taking very long at all to finish up...

 

[joelhinch]

I have the 2.4/64/5500M 8GB/2TB. This is what I got with battery health, it has been all over the place with its Current Max but it has always been below its designed 8790 View attachment 879628
I took this with like 8 chrome tabs open (a combination of youtube, this forum, and various newsites), telegram up in another desktop as well as terminal in that same desktop. I would continue to monitor your computer and I will do the same. I will let you know if anything changes on my end

Woah. You battery age is so recent. Mine is 14th October manufacture date. Same experience with the "Current Max" its gone from 8660 to 8799 and down again. Always changing.

Whats your screen brightness? I tried 35% with Chrome open and it went down to 15w.
I quit chrome, went to only 1 bar of brightness, then used safari for this post. Got it to 9w. 7hrs remaining.
But like at that rate I might as-well not be using the damn thing.

Was expecting 11hrs (advertised) for 50% brightness with a few chrome tabs to be honest.

I also noticed auto graphics switching not working too well. dGPU being used by chrome. Wouldn't switch to iGPU until I quit chrome.
Edit: Fixed the chrome problem https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/16288303?hl=en

Edit 2:

"Testing conducted by Apple in October 2019 using preproduction 2.3GHz 8‑core Intel Core i9–based 16‑inch MacBook Pro systems, with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. The wireless web test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing 25 popular websites with display brightness set to 12 clicks from the bottom or 75 per cent. The Apple TV app movie playback test measures battery life by playing back 1080p HD content with display brightness set to 12 clicks from the bottom or 75 per cent."

From Apples Website.
No way with the 2.4 Ghz/64GB/5500M am I seeing anythgin like that with wireless video playback with 75% brightness. As soon as I start video playback (Apple TV App only open, and 75% brightness) I get 4hrs estimate 98% battery remaining.

 

[matram]

In my experience the estimated time remaining on battery only slowly adapts to lower consumption.

If you have the power draw (in Watt) divide the battery capacity 100 Wh with that number. So with a power draw of 9 W you have about 11 hours and with 14 W you have about 7 hours. That tends to give a more immediate picture of what you can expect.

Otherwise the usual advice apply:
- Do not use the discrete GPU if you want to maximize battery life
- Do not connect external equipment that will draw power from the MBP
- Use Activity Monitor to identify processes with high energy consumption

With my old 2016 15" I tested power draw based on brightness, there was basically no difference between 0 - 50% but at the upper end of the brightness range consumption went up quickly. Basically the brightness scale is non-linear. 50% on the slider is about 20% of maximum screen luminance (nits).

Safari open, 2 tabs, 70% brightness, Battery Health 3 says 14w draw. 4hrs remaining. 99% battery.

Got it to 9w. 7hrs remaining.
But like at that rate I might as-well not be using the damn thing.

 

[Donnation]

I get about 2.5 hrs from just web browsing (only safari open 5 tabs). 1 week old 2.4 Ghz i9\64GB\5500M 8GB\2TB. Have to say I'me pretty disappointed. Anything with a bit of load I get about an hour.

Then there is something wrong with yours. I have the exact same configuration (except 32GB RAM) and my battery life has been nothing short of excellent.

 

[Ma2k5]

Some people are experiencing issues with some apps taking insane amount of power (eg the Mail app). Look at your activity monitor under energy tab if you really are getting less than 6-8 hours of light use.

 

[JustHereforHelp69]

Woah. You battery age is so recent. Mine is 14th October manufacture date. Same experience with the "Current Max" its gone from 8660 to 8799 and down again. Always changing.

Whats your screen brightness? I tried 35% with Chrome open and it went down to 15w.
I quit chrome, went to only 1 bar of brightness, then used safari for this post. Got it to 9w. 7hrs remaining.
But like at that rate I might as-well not be using the damn thing.

Was expecting 11hrs (advertised) for 50% brightness with a few chrome tabs to be honest.

I also noticed auto graphics switching not working too well. dGPU being used by chrome. Wouldn't switch to iGPU until I quit chrome.
Edit: Fixed the chrome problem https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/16288303?hl=en

Edit 2:

"Testing conducted by Apple in October 2019 using preproduction 2.3GHz 8‑core Intel Core i9–based 16‑inch MacBook Pro systems, with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. The wireless web test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing 25 popular websites with display brightness set to 12 clicks from the bottom or 75 per cent. The Apple TV app movie playback test measures battery life by playing back 1080p HD content with display brightness set to 12 clicks from the bottom or 75 per cent."

From Apples Website.
No way with the 2.4 Ghz/64GB/5500M am I seeing anythgin like that with wireless video playback with 75% brightness. As soon as I start video playback (Apple TV App only open, and 75% brightness) I get 4hrs estimate 98% battery remaining.

Brightness was at like 35% as it was done at night when I got those results. Here is it with brightness above 50% (60). The same environment as the first one: Chrome was open with multiple tabs including youtube (video playing), this forum, some new-sites, etc.), another desktop with telegram and terminal open.

I also just tested the same environment but upped the brightness to 75% and played apple TV and got this

I order my model on the 16th, it arrived this Monday. I don't think your battery is working right, but again I will keep an eye out on mine for the next three days while I still have this app.

Edit: Important note I just thought of. It seems that some displays are brighter than others so this could skew the results of these tests. I don't have the means of testing mine unfortunately

 

[AustinIllini]

My battery is fine until I play Civilization VI