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Comment by Noaidi | Hacker News Reader

I still have 94% of my battery health left on my 2020 M1, and I have all the speed I need as a casual, avergae user.

Crazy good. I only have 87% on mine and I think I got it in 2022 (M1 though)... I wonder if it's because I leave it plugged in so much.

I don’t think it’s the fact that it’s plugged in so much. I used mine plugged in pretty much all the time. It only charges to 80% but every once in a while, I drain it down to zero. I do live in a cooler climate as well and I probably don’t use my computer as much as most people.

I've got 90% on a 2020 bought one. I only plug it to charge it, rarely use it plugged.

But I'd say that how much it's used is also an important factor.

al dente supposedly preserves battery health

What magic are you and everyone else doing ? I already have only 92% on my less than year old M4 14inch Pro.

I haven't booted up the older M1 recently to check, but I remember it was throwing replace battery warnings well before I got the upgrade and that I think that triggering below 80%.

Yes if it hits 79%, you can swap it under AppleCare+ at the Apple Store. My MBP M1 Max is on the second replacement and still great!

I use Al Dente to further optimize battery and calibrate it now and then

I actually went to the Apple Store last spring with battery upgrade in mind, but Apple Store in Burlingame told me it will take 3-5 business days to do the change.

I didn't have a spare laptop to work with at that time for a week so i held of[1]. This is probably a reason for lot of people opting out of upgrades.

After the M4 came there was hype for the new screen which performs better in sunlight and M1->M4 seemed worth it plus vRAM which is certainly handy.

[1]The screen was also deteriorating - no physical issues just wasn't as bright as it was new) and they said I should replace that too. The economics a new Air worth of money on a older laptop with just 1-2 years primary use life left is shaky.

I just purchased a MacBook Air on the spot to bridge the week and returned it when I got my MBP back

Also both times I did it, it took 2-3 days, not the quoted 1+ weeks

1. I have 90 % on my m1 pro, bought in 2020 [1]

2. Batteries age faster in the beginning and then their ageing rate plateaus. It's the same for electric cars. E.g. a Tesla can lose 5% efficiency in the first 30k miles, but will lose the next 5% over 60k+.

https://i.imgur.com/ohRFtoO.png

Perhaps something is wrong with way I cycle it or set my apps up. I always feel it never hold charges anywhere close to what everyone is saying they get.

The only time battery is not a problem is when video streaming for hours, presumably the decoding is offloaded to the dedicated media chips on the board.

I don’t use it a lot and I keep it plugged in some majority of the time. It only charges to 80%. I also occasionally, probably every month, drain the battery to zero.

Also, the majority of time it’s been in my van, which is pretty chilly most of the time.

From my understanding, battery health is based on use and environment.

I have been monitoring temperatures closely with mac-stats https://mac-stats.com/ over the last few months.

It typically runs around 110-130 for CPU and the battery is 85-90 on light usage like say browser or slack.

However if i run a full compile of the repo or just about anything a bit compute intensive CPU jumps easily to 170-200 range regularly and battery to 120.

I am now frequently running the fans higher manually to cool it down[1]

I think Apple is optimizing for being quiet over battery and laptop life and have kept the fans low speed even if it would benefit the hardware to speed them up earlier under load.

[1] This is not because I can the temps all the time in the top bar. The palm rests do become noticeably hotter and bit uncomfortable than the noise would be.

I saw it first on using a device 2 years older than your M1, so you might be in a similar boat soon - but I hope not.

The lower power and heat of M-devices might result in meaningfully longer battery life, and I'm curious to find out.

frankly nothing holds a candle to the battery performance of the M series machines so it’s likely a safe bet to assume that advantage will also translate into longer overall life/battery health until we see otherwise. We’ll see in a few years I suppose.

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