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by hellofunk 3412 days ago
In December 2016, I purchased new the 2015 model that Apple still sells. I've never been so pleased with a computer (and it was a lot cheaper than the Touch Bar model).

One big surprise is that after nearly 3 months of using it every day for software development, I am still getting 15 hours battery life. This just amazes me and was far beyond my expectation. (Now, I mainly use emacs, clang, and terminal, but even compiling every few minutes my c++ doesn't hit the battery much at all).
2 comments
yaegers 3412 days ago
Battery life seems not like a surprise. Isn't Apple only selling 2015 MacBooks without a discrete GPU? So you basically only have Intel Graphics in there which would mean a charge lasts much longer if it doesn't need to drive an NVidia or AMD card as well.
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contergan 3412 days ago
I'm inclined not to believe the 15 hour claim. I've had the 2015 MBP since it came out and get maybe 4-5 hours of battery life doing non-heavy web development nowadays. After I newly bought it I got maybe around 7 hours at most. With integrated graphics only of course - with the dedicated GPU active I get around 3 hours or so only.
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mattkevan 3412 days ago
Are you using Chrome or Electron apps? Chrome rinses mine in about 3-4 hours, whereas Safari lasts all day.
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dkonofalski 3412 days ago
Same here. I didn't believe my friend when he told me it was Chrome and, for some reason, I didn't believe the battery meter that kept telling me that Chrome was using significant power. Switched to Safari and now my battery lasts all day. If I could get Slack to play nice I think I'd have over a day of charge (1 day meaning a 12-16 hour working day, not 24 hours).
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hellofunk 3412 days ago
I'm not inflating my claim, but it's possible that I use really efficient apps most of the time compared to the average user. I am also not watching movies or YouTube or listening to music. Just writing code in a very efficient editor (emacs), and doing very little web browsing.

Also perhaps they improved their batteries in the most recent iteration? Just guessing because your experience is definitely different than mine.

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leonardoe 3412 days ago
I needed to replace my 2010 macbook air and after much consideration I ordered a maxed-out (excepting SSD) 2015 mbp last week.

Buying previous generation hardware feels weird, I hope I don't regret this decision.

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