MacBooks are hungry

misi misi

misi

Growing Little Guru
Here's how I got better battery life for my MacBook Pro

It took six weeks of tech support calls, power usage monitoring and Genius Bar diagnostics, but I'm finally convinced my new MacBook Pro isn't an expensive mistake.

And what I've learned along the way can help you, too -- regardless of what laptop you're using.

I bought a 15-inch Touch Bar-equipped MacBook Pro sight unseen late last year, confident that performance improvements, Apple's superior trackpads and better portability would justify the upgrade from its 2012-era predecessor. But my pleasure at the speed-up evaporated when I noticed within the first week how fast the machine drained its battery.

My heart sank when the revamped Mac design lasted only 3 hours, 7 minutes on battery in my first formal test just doing routine work -- chores in Google's Chrome browser, chiefly, but also a few minutes on power-hungry photo editing. This was not supposed to be what happened when one of the biggest reasons I upgraded was to replace the feeble, worn-out battery in the old machine.

I feared my Apple was a lemon. It wasn't just me, though, as evidenced by forum fretting and some cases of customer returns.


But with help from Apple techies and a lot of testing, I reached a different conclusion: The MacBook's terrific new screen, which maxes out at a significantly brighter level, was gobbling watts despite a more energy-efficient design. There are other factors, but dialing down the brightness helped me once again work all day on a single charge.
Click to expand...

3 hours only?
 
okeedokee okeedokee

okeedokee

The Bastion of Belmont
3 hours > till they found the problem.
Anyway my new 27" imac should be delivered any day.....hope delivery is better than misi's. :wink2:
Mine now is a 21.5 inch bought 18 months ago and is so slow that I am sick of it and going for a refurbished older model.....I recon they are better than the latest ones.....and more repairable.
Crossing my fingers....
 
misi misi

misi

Growing Little Guru
okeedokee said:
hope delivery is better than misi's.
Click to expand...
Sure, :pray:provided it's coming from Apple.


okeedokee said:
Mine now is a 21.5 inch bought 18 months ago and is so slow that I am sick of it
Click to expand...
Reminds me of my old XP...
Was it that slow on the beginning?
If not then I guess it's so slow because of its HDD.

How do I speed up my Mac?
  1. Use Activity Monitor. If you want to see what apps are using up your system, open the Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder.
  2. Turn off visual effects. Most Macs are now capable of running Mac OS X Mavericks without any trouble. ...
  3. Update your software (and set to auto update) ...
  4. Clean up your hard drive.

Spend $200 on a Samsung SSD and it will start flying.
(Provided it's possible to do on a Mac)
That way you would have a good spare machine.
 
okeedokee okeedokee

okeedokee

The Bastion of Belmont
Any day was yesterday. Ordered on Tuesday evening and delivered to my front door at midday Thursday. Nice big heavy machine. Took me a day to set all up the way I wanted. :happy
Has only 4GB RAM.....might up it to 12 - or even 20. It will take 32 GB RAM.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top