[go_prodev]

Battery life gets mentioned quite often with laptops, but is it still really that important?

I run my business from an X1 Carbon, but it's more about portability than battery life. Trains, planes, Starbucks all have power available so it's constantly plugged in and I can't remember the last time I used it on battery for more than an hour.

[hoot]

I recently got my first macbook (coming from a thinkpad) and it’s honestly more about not having to give a shit about a charger. It charges incredibly fast when I plug it into its monitor, but otherwise I just throw it in a bag without even thinking about what my battery percentage is. I’ll leave the house with it and not even bring the charger.

[gtirloni]

I think this is the biggest selling point for me. Fewer cables around.

[flkiwi]

I've been using my X1C on battery for the last 4 hours on a transpacific flight (hello from the middle of nowhere) and am looking forward to about 4 more hours. The seat has a convenient power plug, but it's awfully nice to leave the charger tucked away in my bag to be one less thing to trip over when I have to wriggle free from my cattle class seat to run to the restroom.

So, to address your question (which I would normally also ask), it is that important though this is also a somewhat narrow use case.

[Casteil]

It's just one of many great aspects for such a capable device.

They also run very cool and are effectively silent even when the fan DOES eventually turn on for a sustained max load. By comparison, every Windows/Intel laptop I've had over the last decade exhibited obvious fan noise every time there was some short-lived load on the CPU - that includes several nicer business/pro grade laptops including Dell XPS, Latitudes, and a Thinkpad.

...and NONE of those other laptops came remotely close to reliably lasting 10+ hours on battery like the MBPs can/do.

[Sakos]

It's pretty much impossible to find an outlet in Germany in public. Certain types of trains have them, but many don't. Like, the only guaranteed outlets I can rely on are at home or at work, and even at work, I'm constantly moving between meetings and simply don't want to futz around with cables all day. I never have to worry about charging my laptop between meetings. That kind of convenience is hard to beat.

Battery life matters. Maybe not to you, but it matters.

[pjmlp]

In Europe, nope, only some trains have power available. Never saw it on planes, and I fly regularly.

Even on trains, one must be lucky and even if lucky, it is usually one socket per pair of seats.