Macbook air 2018 battery life

Before I return, I will use the machine without using Chrome except for very short period to see what happens.

Do as you please but as I wrote that will not suffice. Google has to be uninstalled according to Google's uninstallation instructions.

This is not unique to Macs, new or old.

Old: Google Chrome killing battery in MacBook … - Apple Community

New: Battery drain on a *new* macbook pro 13 … - Apple Community

PCs: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=chrome+(slow%2C+energy)&t=osx&ia=web

I also hate that there're no USB ports

There are two on a 2018 MBA. Apple calls them "Thunderbolt" ports. They are USB-C compatible. Refer to Identify the ports on your Mac - Apple Support.

It appears the MacBook Air does not meet your requirements. You can return it for a full cash refund within 14 days of purchase. Consider a Chromebook, or a Windows PC.

Refer to My battery runtime is low.

Simultaneous use of three browsers is an unusual requirement. Decide what's more important for your needs: battery life or performance. You can have one at the expense of the other.

Google Chrome is not just a browser though. You cannot install Chrome without also installing all its other constantly running, performance-degrading components designed to constantly harvest your personal information so that Google can sell it. Uninstalling Google is likely to result in between a 50% to 100% improvement in battery life. Google's overall effect on power consumption is not limited to Macs.

Refer to MacBook Air (Retina, 13-inch, 2018) - Technical Specifications footnote 2. My personal testing concluded Apple's "up to 12 hours" claim is slightly conservative. I have no use for Google though.

I think the Apple Store sent you off in an unproductive direction by suggesting the existence of some hidden setting. If such a thing were responsible for rapid battery depletion they might have provided instructions for un-hiding it or otherwise correcting its rogue behavior. Apparently they did not.

Not only do you deserve a more comprehensive explanation than simply guessing, when replacing a Mac with a newer one migrating information from it (or its Time Machine backup—it really makes no difference) is exactly what you're supposed to do, for the reasons you state. Painstakingly installing each and every app and document you require is time-consuming, tedious, and justified only in certain cases (specifically, to recover from the use of a variety of non-Apple "cleaning" scam products that should never be installed on any Mac).

For an Activity Monitor user guide read Activity Monitor User Guide. Its energy tab will readily identify resource-intensive apps or processes resulting in rapid battery depletion. That's what it is designed to do, so find out what they are.

Despite what the energy usage shows, Chrome is generally the culprit for battery drain as it also highly triggers the iGPU. Also I generally never backup Time machine while on battery. That can really drain it.

I'm highly recommending to not buy one of the older Air's. The screen is poor compared to the 2018. Do yourself a huge favor and don't choose battery life over screen quality. You can work around power needs. You can't fix poor screen quality.

Had you read carefully i had mentioned that when I use just Safari, battery life is about 12 hours.

People who come to this site for help deserve attention, and although I make mistakes from time to time, I do endeavor to read questions carefully before answering. After reading that comment though, I re-read everything you wrote a second time. I can't find where you said that. The only relevant comment was "If only Safari is open more like five hours." That's also unacceptable and completely contrary to my own evaluation of your model MBA. No one would put up with that, nor should they. However, if people choose to install Google their reported experiences are such that as much as a 50% reduction in battery life is not uncommon. Of course that's their choice, as was their choice to purchase a Mac model primarily designed for portability.

There's nothing wrong with pushing any Mac to its design limits and plenty of people elect to purchase a MacBook Air for programming, web page development, video and music editing and so forth—all the same things everyone does with Macs. It's just unreasonable to do all those things and expect anything near twelve hours of battery life from Apple's lightest and most portable Mac. If Apple wanted to build a MacBook Air with 24 hours of battery life they certainly could. They just wouldn't sell any. Power density is a compromise with anything portable, from computers to cars, and the MBA is portable first, powerful next.

Perhaps beautiful is first. Ugly wouldn't sell either.

I would send the info to apple if I knew how.

Apple has a variety of contact options—start with the Contact Support link above—but the most effective one is likely to return it. It's a "no questions asked" return policy. I suggest you don't offer any explanation, because if you complain you're only getting three or four hours of battery life from a MacBook Air with Google installed, I can personally assure you Apple will not care. It seems to me you already made up your mind anyway, so any more effort on your part will be superfluous and a waste of time. It's the reason I initially asked if you had a question of a technical nature.

I still can't find a question. Read See how apps affect Mac performance, battery runtime, temperature, and fan activity.

No disrespect intended but it always happens that people will simply blame Apple and give 3rd party software a pass. It's absolutely ridiculous that Safari would drain the battery worse than Chrome. You could get away with that theory if Chrome wasn't well known to be a resource hog. In this case you're wrong. I have a 2018 MBP and I run Safari daily and I get the full amount of the advertised battery life. Anytime I have to use Chrome for select websites my MacBook gets warm and the battery drops.

But after seeing you looking for an excuse to return it such as "no USB ports", when you knew that it didn't have those exact ports when you bought it, I'm starting to feel a bit suspect about you. Along with you only wanting to check out Chrome "For a very short Period" and you're complaining the letters are too small. All of which you knew before buying it.

Do you have a question for your fellow Mac users?