"By increasing the laptop’s battery capacity, HP is able to push the machine’s battery life from the 9.5 hours it estimated for the 4K version of its 2016 model to about 12 hours and 45 minutes for this model. So it is adding three hours of battery life, but in doing so, it’s merely matching the battery life of last year’s 1080p model."
It is still a net gain over the previous year's 4K model's battery life.
What use case needs 12+? That seems "good enough" to me for most applications. Is it building in more life so that as the battery degrades there is still acceptable battery life?
Are there more applications than I think where the laptop is actually not plugged in all day? When does that happen? Manufacturing? Some kind of in-the-field work?
I have no experience with it so honestly curious how people use laptops as more than a mobile terminal in an office setting.
Probably none, but knowing your laptop can go 12 on light use gives you a little more comfort when doing more CPU intensive work while on battery.
I'd be surprised if I could get 12 hours on that HP Spectre with my bad habits (tens of Chrome tabs left open at the same time).
But even day to day, "12 hour battery" is assuming CPU- and GPU-light workloads. The actual work I do, requiring a lot of compilation and GPU crunching, cuts a battery life in half or by two-thirds depending on the model. A typical laptop then is reduced to about ~2hrs of battery life, and an extended "12 hour battery" is more like 4-6hrs.
In Apple's case they are reducing watts and presuming lots of idle time. This may match a large number of their users - I only hear complaints from developers.
EDIT: watt-hours? Sorry, my electrical knowledge is not awesome.
Someone who migrates from conf room to conf room and doesn't want to carry the wall wart with them?
I know that I move my laptop (MBP) from location to location in my house and don't have a dozen chargers. I like that I can get everything done on battery and just take it back to my regular "desk" when done if I want.
Also 12h+ battery life today means 10+ next year and 7-8ish the year afterwards... future proofed in a way against both expected degradation and future software/bloat requirements.
The latest MacBook "Pro" is no longer a professional machine... it's nothing more than the new generation of MacBook Air. There is no longer a Pro line, only upgrades for the least common denominator of consumer.
Source: desperately not wanting to give up OS X (it's the only operating system I can stand), but I'm stuck in a position where I flat out refuse to shell out $4200 CAD on a new laptop, when 3 years ago the same level of upgrades cost $1000 less. Their pricing has reached unacceptable levels of greed. That, and no fucking escape key... on a "professional" machine. Give me a break.