[cnst]

> It also uses High-Performance graphics for whatever reason when connected and can completely drain a full MacBook Pro battery in under an hour. Disconnecting does not free the GPU.

Which is ultimately a bug, or a missing feature, in MacOS -- it shouldn't be possible for a random broken app to make your 10h battery only last 1h -- change my mind.

Coincidentally, even though MacBook Pro 16" has a much larger battery than MacBook Air -- ~100Wh vs. ~50Wh -- MBP is also capable of consuming said battery at a much faster rate -- 100W vs. 30W. So, if you need an average web-browsing machine with the best battery runtime in the presence of silly apps that consume all available resources, it's actually a much better choice to get MBA vs. MBP.

Why Apple doesn't introduce a setting to optimise the runtime for battery, or a lap-use mode, is beyond me. I had to install Turbo Boost Switcher to make my 2020 MBP16" usable as a laptop -- it runs out of battery, and is too hot to use on a lap, otherwise. Sadly, there's not even any tool to reliable turn off the graphics card, either -- I had to find a setting to switch it off in Firefox manually.