2016 macbook pro 15" with touch bar poor battery life

#1319

Well I (sadly) returned my MBP 13/i7/16g/256 tonight. Did everything. Reset, reinstalled etc etc. Still only 3 1/2 hrs battery life. Unacceptable for a $2,442.00 (incl tax) laptop. I spoke to 2 of the "geniuses" that told me -off the record- they are getting "swamped" with calls and in-store complaints and have heard its a "hardware issue with multiple batches that will not be solved with a SW update" So I'm going to wait until the dust settles, or make the leap to a proven laptop .. the Dell XPS 13. I have been buying Apple products since the 80's and I think Apple has once again lost it way. I think Jony Ive and Co want to make expensive Art (thin, beautiful to look at, etc) and not good technology (ie. powerful "pro" good battery life, etc).

I wiped the drive clean and reinstalled the OS, the battery life increased from on average 4 hours to 6 hours.

Before I was using the migration from my old 2012 macbook pro. However, the battery life on the 13" tbMBP is still very disappointing.

I'm getting proper battery run times. I tested it twice, and it seems the battery runs down about 10% per hour but...
BUT the "hours remaining" times indicate the meter is schizophrenic it was basically all over the board.... I am also suspicious the time machine back ups are impacting the results and will retest again later in the week.
since it seems the batteries are CAPABLE of the full 9 to 10 hours, I suspect those having issues will find the fault is software related... probably old systems setting or software they brought over when they migrated to the new Mac.
I did a clean install and am testing between software installs to see if the problem suddenly starts.

I can understand that this might be the case when transferring data from an old setup, but what about when you just receive your machine from Apple and its a fresh install? This is the case for me, I can't understand why i'm having battery issues.

are you running time machine and bluetooth? just curiuos...
and have you actually run the machine from full charge to shut off or are you trusting the meter?
I'm not trusting my meter at 96% charge it said 4 hours... 5.5 hours later... I'm at 30% charge so its been discharging at a fairly steady 10% / hr meaning I should hit 9 hours today.

No i'm not running time machine or bluetooth. I don't trust the meter but I've run it from 100% to 15-20% and it was 5-5.5 hours max. Also another weird thing about the battery is that when i connect it to my external monitor it takes literally ages for 1% to charge and sometimes it even shows "not charging" . I've created a new thread if you wanna have a look . Macbook Pro 2016 15" poor charging when connected to monitor

I'm experiencing battery issues as well. I've made an appointment with the Genius Bar to have them run some tests on it. Hopefully Apple will have a simple fix here soon.

I agree about the schizophrenic battery life indicator. At 100%, I got 7.23hr. Called AppleCare to enquire as this is less than the 10hr stated (just bought laptop less than 24hr ago). .. the guy told me to wait it oura couple more days, as battery may stabilise by then. As I was speaking to the consultant, my batt life rose to 19.35hr still at 100%. But after computer went to sleep and woke again, hours remaining was 6.30 or something to that extent, at around 90%. I downloaded "battery health" app from AppStore, thinking I may just get a more accurate reading, but pretty much just gives the exact batt time left given by the MacBook on top right hand corner of screen.

I think the batt life indicator may be the real culprit here? And the best way to test is to perhaps run music/online streaming for 10hr straight to see if batt can last that long?

I am getting 9 hours consistently

Is this with web browsing / watching videos/ listening to music?

Add me to the list, I can literally watch my battery life drain. I fully charged it last night, and after leaving it unplugged and un-used all day, I open to 98% battery. Now after 30min puttering around I'm down to 68%. This is ridiculous.

As a side note, I also have the wonderful surprise of my audio not working through the laptop speakers, but worked streaming to other music sources. Needed to reboot to fix....

not impressed......

yes. iTunes off a nas drive, web browsing, youtube, Facebook, one movie off iTunes. it drains at about 10% /hr average but the "time remaining all all over the place, wayyyy off

Yes I returned mine due to voltage issue. Seems like a very rough start to the 2016 models. BTW the no -touch bar 13" actually has a larger battery. That might be the way to go for a lot of people. I edit photographs so I need power.

I plan to buy the "2016" model once the issues are sorted out. I not only prefer the Apple ecosystem but I have had very bad experiences with Dell support and exceptionally good experiences with Apple support. Just thinking about working with Dell support sends chills down my spine. Part of the high price of Apple covers support I assume. And Apple has excellent resale value sonlooking at life cycle costs it is less of a problem.

Thanks for letting us know! Doing a fresh install versus is probably a wise move in general and particularly in this case.

I left a comment earlier about my 13" Pro with Touchbar with the same issues. Last night, I wiped the hard drive and did a clean install of OS Sierra. I have not added any apps or documents from my old computer yet. Before the reinstall, the battery was reading a max of 6 hours remaining. This morning, It actually went up to 9 hours! However, it has been dropping quickly. Just surfing on safari, I am at 96% and reading 7 hours and 14 minutes. Its a lot better than it was but still not to the level that it should be.

Also, an aside: How much memory should the computer be using when I am not running any programs? Mine reads 3.5 - 4.0 Gb of memory when nothing is running. Is it just me, or does that seem like a lot?