Late 2013 Retina Macbook Pro Battery Life

Question

Level 1

5 points

Late 2013 Retina Macbook Pro Battery Life

I am getting around 3-5 hours of battery life with my late 2013 rMBP with brightness turned down, bluetooth off, Wi-Fi on, forcing integrated GPU, and using safari w/out flash.

I've seen other people with the early 2013 model get 10 hours!

I used migration assistant to transfer my data across to this mac when I started using it a few weeks ago.

I have included a screenshot showing my current usage.

http://take.ms/TMw6b

My relevant specs:

ME294LL/A - 2.3ghz i7 w/ GeForce GT 750m.

Any solution other than fresh install?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1), ME294LL/A

Posted on Jan 28, 2014 2:44 AM

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Answer 1

jason269

Community Specialist

Jan 30, 2014 7:34 AM in response to raikun

Hello, raikun.

Thank you for the question. The first thing we need to look at is the health and condition of your battery. This first article will show you how to process this. Be sure to test the results after each troubleshooting step processed.

Mac notebooks: Determining battery cycle count

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1519

If the battery health shows acceptable, then try a reset of the System Management Controller. If the battery health shows to be unacceptable, reach out to use here.

Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

I would also recommend taking a look at the article below to help maximize battery life.

Mac notebooks: All about batteries

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1446

Cheers,

Jason H.

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Answer 2

raikun Author

Level 1

5 points

Jan 30, 2014 5:13 PM in response to jason269

Jason269,

Thank you for your response. My battery health is fine, I did a SMC reset, and I have a cycle count of 35.

Still 4 hours with bluetooth disabled, brightness on minimum and very few programs running rather than the 12 hours advertised.

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Answer 3

CLENCY

Level 1

0 points

Feb 1, 2014 7:35 AM in response to raikun

Same problem for me, MacBook Pro Retina late 2013. I had 5h30 on the battery after a full charge. (only 10 cycle)

I did the SMC reset and now get 9:15..

Thks !

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Answer 4

Jun 7, 2014 1:20 AM in response to raikun

Ever get that one sorted, raikun?

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Answer 5

raikun Author

Level 1

5 points

Jun 9, 2014 7:44 AM in response to Andrei P.

Unfortunately not!

Even took it into Apple store where they tried a fresh install of OSX and said that 6 hours was "normal"

Needless to say, a little disappointed!

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Answer 6

Jun 9, 2014 8:11 AM in response to raikun

I gathered the original capacity can vary by up to a quarter or so in the more extreme cases. What is your amperage like? I get 3 hours of typing non-stop from my 5 yo MBP with average amperage of 1,300 and full charge capacity of 4,829 - 2/3 of orginal which impresses and it may soon be time for a new one hence the interest. I tested two 15 inch MBPs in store and their ameparge was 1,700 and an estimated life of around 3 hours and a bit on both so made me wonder what's going on... I also found that Mavericks helped improve my battery life by some noticeable amount. I think I'll be happy with 6 but 9 is obviously substantially better & Apple are usually accurate with their battery life estimates. So if your capacity is average and amperage is say 1,500 or less (check what it's like in safe mode perhaps, with nothing running - mine is around 900, I think) then you should be seeing life in the region of 9 hours. It's possible that the estimate is not very accurate, too - but you've already tested that, of course.

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