Macbook pro max m2 16' , the battery that flies away!

95% is a good number and it may stay there for months as battery degradation is non linear. Cycle count has nothing to do with remaining capacity.

You battery is not leaking unless you see battery chemicals oozing outside the case or the case is obviously swollen. It's just slowly being consumed and it is in reality a consumable.

Turn battery optimization on and leave it on. Your battery and its charging circuitry will manage the battery's health far better than any human will.

There is nothing to do as nothing has failed. Apple does not do preventative maintenance. When remaining capacity gets to 80%, Apple advises the battery be replaced. Have Apple do that.

Batteries - Maximising Performance - Apple (AU)

Nicolò_s wrote:

plus at every launch of presentation the product in question has been presented with important performance,specifications say "up to 15 hours of browsing" ""longest battery life ever seen on a Mac".

That is marketing and testing under very unique testing environment meant to maximize the results. They are not real world numbers....they never are. Apple is testing the laptop using only a clean factory installed OS without any third party apps installed.....are you using your laptop without any third party apps installed?

i demand that those performances are maintained or at least come close. The fact that the battery is a deteriorable asset, this is known, but after just 4 months of light use and being careful, I do not find it correct that in total the battery has already lost its 8695mah, and that for example, in just 3 days of testing, from 8427mah it is already to date at 8295mah, 1.57% in 3 days and more than 5% with 43 cycles, already 400mah lost .. at this rate other than the promised performance. I'll just tell you that today at 6 pm I had 100%, it's 11:22 pm, I've only been surfing and documents, writing on word mainly and my battery reads 55%. , and that's 5 hours, with office work.

"surfing" can use a lot more power/energy than you realize since most websites have a lot of embedded code running & consuming resources. "surfing" is not considered a light workload. If you are using a Chromium based browser, then the energy & resources consumed is even greater. One thing that can help increase battery run time is by lowering the screen brightness a bit....while macOS does this automatically with default settings, adjusting brightness even lower can help even more. If you have external devices connected or an SD card attached, that will increase battery usage as well just by having them connected.

Apple has never previously provided the details on Battery Capacity to the average user through the GUI interface so most users won't understand or realize how this value may fluctuate or how quickly it may decrease. Third party apps like Coconut Battery have reported the Battery Capacity in the past and shown the actual values in mAh. I have closely monitored the mAh values of the Battery's Full Charge Capacity (FCC) for many years now in order to confirm a failing battery when everything checks out fine using traditional methods. The FCC value with Apple OEM Batteries fluctuates a lot...some of these fluctuations can actually be large enough to change the percentage value of the Battery Capacity reported by macOS.

I have seen the FCC value of Apple batteries fluctuate by 200mAh which appears to be normal behavior as far as I can tell. This 200mAh decrease could drop the Battery Capacity (FCC) shown by macOS by about 2.5% (or 3% with rounding). I have seen fluctuations even larger...it is hard to know how large a fluctuation is a cause for concern...usually I only worry once they exceed 400 - 500 mAh (this is for quick fluctuations which means it goes up & down every few minutes by 400 or 500 mAh, not just a single drop over a longer period of time).

So the Battery Capacity shown by macOS may just be its current lower number....it is possible you may see it go up by a percentage point or three if you check later on. If the 8,695 mAh you mention is the Battery's Design Capacity, then Apple will consider the Battery is normal until it reaches a value of 6,956 mAh (80%), or more likely 6,695 mAh (77%) since Apple seems to report values within macOS a bit differently than the value actually reported by the battery itself.

My experience is mostly with the Apple Intel laptops. From my very limited examination of the Apple Silicon Batteries, they appear to behave differently than their Intel counterparts. I'm still trying to perform a better analysis of the Apple Silicon Batteries, but Apple has changed the information reported by the built-in command line utilities I use to gather the information from the battery so I have to find other ways of accessing the information which is requiring me to create a custom script to parse the information available with other macOS command line utilities which are not as easy to use.

I've seen lots of users report the same issue as you have reported here. Some users later followed up and said that the Battery Capacity leveled off after a while.

Keep in mind that Lithium Batteries are very complicated to make. A lot of things can affect their operation. Besides small issues during manufacturing, how hot the operating & storage environment of the laptop can affect a Lithium battery as will any impacts the laptop may receive...the impacts don't necessarily have to dent the aluminum laptop case...just a soft impact can jar the internals of a Lithium battery enough to decrease it capacity.

Nicolò_s wrote:

I don't think it's a good number after just 2 months of nomal office use

Ku4hx and Grant are correct. Your battery numbers are likely normal. "Let's be objective." Yes, let's be objective, here are some numbers from one of my 16-inch MacBook Pros, which is mostly connected to a charger but sometimes used on the battery alone.

2021 March, new computer

2021 June, 3 months use, 95%, 20 cycles

2022 Sept, 15 months use, 91% 59 cycles

2023 March, 24 months use, 90% 108 cycles

2023 Sept, 29 months use, 91% 131 cycles

Note that ku4hx said it is a non-linear wearing out process and my experience confirms that. Also note that it went down to 90% and then WENT UP to 91%. There is some "noise" with these measurements, however they are being done.

Your data is too new to be meaningful. You can't make good projections about batteries until at least several years have passed. Mine is down to 91% original capacity after 2.5 years, so I'm expecting it to last for ~ 5 years, which is reasonable for a laptop battery. But it might last longer, I have a 2010 MacBook Air laptop on its ORIGINAL battery and it has been showing 83% capacity for the past five years!

As was pointed out by the others, batteries are consumables, just like tires (or batteries) in an automobile, or light bulbs in your home. There are things you can do to make it last longer (as per Grant), but they are meant to be used. Make sure the optimized battery health is activated in your System Settings and just use the computer, replace the battery when it wears out.

Coconut Battery is an app you can download for more insight into your Mac's battery health.

My Macbook Pro 13 battery has 365 cycles and is at 80% health. Yet that computer is over 10 years old, and that is the original battery.

I am certainly satisfied with the service that battery has provided.

The other issue is that health is inexact and non-linear.

1—The the number used as the denominator in calculating health, the design capacity, is not an exact value for your battery but rather an average of actual capacities across many batteries of the same model. Vagaries of the manufacturing process mean some batteries start life lower than the average and some over. My Macbook Pro started at 102% health.

THIS FACTOR ALONE will impact health numbers more early in the battery's life than it will in later life.

2—As for "non-linear," it's as real as death and taxes. These are extended data going back to May 2022 for my decade-old Macbook Pro battery, complied by the Coconut Battery app. The % number is health. Note how the health numbers vary, sometimes as much as 8-9% in only 20 days(!):

Please don't try to to make exact decisions based on woefully inexact numbers. These numbers are guidelines, not gospel. They nicely define long-term trends, but are relatively meaningless for a short sample size,

Still, if you are not happy with the numbers—exact of not—that you see, by all means please have Apple evaluate. You are under warranty.

Until this MacBook Pro battery reaches 80%, the battery is good.

100% is good. 99% is good. 86% is good. 81% is good.

When the estimate dips to 80%—and however long that decline might take, as the inherent degradation of the battery materials is very far from a linear process—the battery is due for replacement.

Until the battery reaches 80%, use this MacBook Pro for the purposes you bought it for.

Which is unlikely to be an expensive battery monitor proving an inexact digital estimate of the power output and chemistry of an inherently analog battery.

When you get to 80%, either replace the Mac—and again, this is seldom a linear decline—or replace the battery.

Nicolò_s wrote:

... so far I have been given answers that seem very biased ... I believe that certain aspects need ... a clinical and objective response

I don't like repeating myself, but this is what I posted before:

2021 March, new computer

2021 June, 3 months use, 95%, 20 cycles

2022 Sept, 15 months use, 91% 59 cycles

2023 March, 24 months use, 90% 108 cycles

2023 Sept, 29 months use, 91% 131 cycles

Note for the past year, despite constant use, on 24/7, this is a work computer, is never shut down, yet the battery stayed at 91%.

Here is my personal computer, also a 16-inch MacBook Pro:

2020 May, new

2020 July, 2 months 98%

2020 Dec, 7 months 95%

2022 Feb, 21 months 91%

2023 Sept, 41 months 91%

I'm showing you actual data to be OBJECTIVE. Projecting battery lifetime based on several months is inaccurate, you have to wait longer.

Also, Apple will not offer you a new battery because it considers the battery healthy until it is down to 80%.

My work computer's battery does not last as long because my employer bogs it down with mandatory anti-virus, remote device management, and other extras. If you have anything like that in the background, it uses more battery. Also, some web sites now are constantly running videos (ads or other) and that uses energy as well. You can also look at Activity Monitor to see which activities are using the most "energy" on your Mac.

I actually share your concern about batteries because my previous work Mac developed a swollen battery that was so severe that it bent the case. I think the new optimized battery management that Apple has implemented is a great advance, based on what I have seen so far with both my work and personal laptops.

Continued:

As the others have mentioned, the Charge Cycles is irrelevant to knowing the health of the battery except when the value nears 1,000 cycles which would indicate nearing end of life. Ignore the Cycle Count until it is above 700 cycles.

I think you have too much faith in Apple's marketing being 100% accurate. It is very rare any manufacturer's reported performance information actually matches real world usage or even real world benchmarking by independent agencies. I would have loved to have the listed FPS listed by the video card manufacturers when I used to play PC games, but guess what....I could never achieve the frame rates they claimed...not even close. My previous car also barely managed to make the minimum city MPG listed for the car even on the highway (no matter how I drove I got the minimum city MPG).

You can always provide Apple with product feedback here (Apple won't respond):

Product Feedback - Apple

You can also contact Apple tech support directly, but unless the Battery Condition shows "Service Recommended" or fails the Apple Diagnostic, then they will consider the laptop is functioning normally and consider the shorter battery runtime as a consequence of the third party software that has been installed.

https://getsupport.apple.com

You can also contact Apple corporate (Apple may respond back to you):

Contact - How to Contact Us - Apple

Nicolò_s wrote:

There are too many things that are unclear with respect to how the battery is intelligently managed, on the various forums there are so many things that are said and there is no common ground, "don't charge it above 80%, don't discharge it below 20%" etc etc... I would like to be able to use my macbook pro max comfortably without having anxieties ... as a consumer I believe I have the right, and as an Apple enthusiast and devotee, the duty to communicate my appreciation or not, to the product purchased.

There is a lot of worthless information and discussion on the internet. You will find no end of opinions about these topics. This is why (I believe) Apple implemented its optimized battery management into the operating system, so users can use their Macs comfortably without having anxieties. You don't have to worry anymore about whether to charge it to this level or that.

I also use PC (Windows) laptops that are advertised as "up to 15 hours of video" but in practice provide only half that. I think the key is the wording, "up to."

Feel free to take your situation to Apple, as Allan Jones suggests, if indeed your Mac is still under warranty. What is it that you want, do you want a new battery, a new Mac, something else? If you take your Mac back to Apple, be ready to explain clearly what you want them to do, and be ready to provide justification. Note that Allan Jones provides additional objective data for you showing that the battery capacity decreases over time but in a decidedly non-linear way. As for posting your opinions here in the Apple Discussions, that is fine also, but keep in mind that the Discussions are a user forum, and what is posted here is not necessarily seen by any Apple employees nor do they track the postings here.

That computer is a battery-CAPABLE device. It is not optimized as a battery-operated device. (It is NOT an iPhone.)

Your computer performs best when connected to AC power. It can use the full output of the Power Adapter AND when doing especially challenging work will also freely "borrow" power from the battery. In some cases, even with the power adapter connected, the charged state may decline during stressful work.

When used only on battery, your computer has no extra cushion of power, and may perform more slowly. However, for ordinary non-stressful tasks this may not be objectionable (possibly not even noticeable.)

In general, you should ALWAYS connect AC power when it is possible to do so, and only run on batteries (which could be somewhat slower) when no AC sources are at hand. Your Mac will NEVER over-charge.

Your MacBook Pro uses ‘smart charging’ to charge in the optimum way, and only when necessary. Plugged in is Not necessarily actively charging. There is substantial hardware and software cooperating on battery and charging issues. Simply asserting a charging voltage against one of the interface(s) will NOT successfully charge your MacBook Pro.

Batteries are a wear item, like the soles of your shoes or tires or brakes on your car. They will have to be replaced after a while, based not only on Power Cycles but also on the passing of time.

Nicolò_s wrote:

Guys, let's be objective, I thank you for the response but I have to smile. You tell me that "a MacBook that is portable and is presented at launch as a device with battery potential of over 8 hours, works better and is better if I keep it plugged in? Are you kidding me? I bought a MacBook because I want and demand the benefits of the laptop, otherwise I would buy an iMac. I am a veteran of Apple products, with my previous 2011 macbook I never had such quick battery problems. Let's be objective.

You have been provided very objective and spot on responses to your posts. No one responding works for Apple. I am responding from a Windows computer. If you are not happy with what other users are telling you, please make an appointment with an authorized service center to have your computer checked.

Apple movers and shakers do not visit here 'looking for trouble'.

Those suggestions belong Here:

Product Feedback - Apple

.

Why are you even here if you're going to reject what the members are saying arguing about every little point?

You obviously thought this community could help, or you'd not have posted anything.

Per your logic, if we'd all ignored your plea for help you'd be no worse off and we could be dealing with those less argumentative posters.

I'm going to do exactly that.