I admit that I’m among the many people who have celebrated the M1 MacBook Air’s battery life.
In fact, I got so excited about it that I decided to test the battery for a day and see how much I could really get from it. The results were pretty interesting.
As many pointed out, one of the key reasons I experienced less than stellar battery life during that test was likely due to the 100% screen brightness (although, in my defence, it was actually set to auto). So, I ran the same test a day later, albeit with 50% brightness, and I sailed easily through a working day with plenty to spare.
However, since then, I’ve once again started to question my original assessment of the battery performance on the M1 MacBook Air.
I think I’ve worked out what’s going on.
The M1 MacBook Air’s battery is great, but there’s a “but”
Don’t get me wrong – the battery life on the M1 MacBook Air is superb for a modern laptop. The same goes for the M1 MacBook Pro, which manages to squeeze an additional two hours out of the day.
However, we should keep in mind that Apple’s laptops have enjoyed great battery life for a number of years now. Even my 16” MacBook Pro is pretty decent in that regard – until you start doing any form of heavy-lifting.
What has increasingly bothered me about the M1 MacBook Air is how you need to use it in order to extract the impressive battery performance cited by every reviewer.
That’s the issue. That’s the big “but”. You have to think about your usage if you want to be impressed by the battery life. Because, as I’ve discovered, if you use it normally, it only drains slightly slower than Intel generation MacBooks.
”It’s the apps you’re using”
When I published both the written and video versions of my M1 MacBook Air battery test, lots of people commented on the apps I was using.
“Teams is a real battery hog. Why are you using that?”
“It’s because you’re using Trello. Don’t bother – it’ll kill the battery.”
“Spark Email is known to be a real resource hog on Macs. Use something else.”
“Did you have Slack open all day? That’s probably why.”
“You’re using Outlook? Don’t.”
If I acted on every piece of advice offered for improving the battery performance, I’d be left with Apple’s stock apps. I’d also have to ditch one or two apps I need in order to run my business.
Instead, I decided to switch from desktop to web app for platforms like Trello. But that didn’t help either, because Trello, like many web apps, regularly forces Safari to sit within the ‘battery shaming’ list offered by macOS when you click the battery icon at the top of the screen.
The other option? Close those battery-hogging apps whenever you’re not using them. But that’s a pain in the backside, and one of the best things about the M1 chip is that you can seemingly leave as many apps running in the background as you like with zero impact on performance (yes, even with 8GB of RAM).
That’s what I’ve been doing on the M1 MacBook Air. I daren’t leave Teams open. Trello (I’ve reverted back to the desktop app simply because it’s more convenient) gets closed as soon as I’m finished with it. I use Chrome occasionally, and I treat any foray into that environment a bit like I would a super-fast visit into a walk-in freezer; in, out, shut it off, don’t open it again until absolutely needed.
The issue with this approach is that you’re forever “thinking battery”. And it’s draining, if you’ll excuse the pun. It slows me down, too, and, on occasion, has resulted in me missing notifications via the apps which I’ve decided to close in order to preserve battery life.
This isn’t a problem
I’ve thought a lot about this, and I’ve realised that it isn’t actually an issue.
If your M1 MacBook usage consists mainly of stock Apple apps, you will experience incredible battery life. That’s what this battery is made for – it’s how Apple achieves its quoted performance figures and why most benchmarks have been so impressive.
On the subject of benchmarks, as I’ve noted before, we’ve seen impressive results there simply because they’ve consisted of people leaving one solitary task (be it a video render or code compile) running overnight. Of course the M1 is going to deal well with that when it comes to the battery.
But if you’re like me – if you hop from one non-Apple app to the next and have got used to leaving them open for quick access, the battery life on the M1 MacBook Air is… ok. It’s perfectly adequate, but not life-changing.
However, I think we’re looking at this wrong.
The real star of the show is the standby time
I’ve noted before that the unsung hero when it comes to the M1 MacBook Air and Pro is the standby time.
Regardless of which apps I’m using (or, indeed, have left open in the background), the standby time on my Air is incredible. It’s easily the best I’ve experienced on any laptop.
Come to think of it, it’s the best standby battery performance I’ve experienced in a mobile device, period.
I occasionally charge my Air overnight. This is largely because I use it for a limited portion of the day (my M1 Mac mini is the daily driver) but also because it spends most of its time on standby and the battery simply isn’t touched. I genuinely don’t think it sucks away any more than a percentage point if left for 12 hours.
This completely trounces the in-use battery life for me, and it’s another reason the M1 is such a game-changer.
Just don’t expect the other-worldly claims if you use anything other than Apple’s own apps.
What have your experiences been? Let me know below.
Great points Mark and your prior re-review of the battery in real world use was so helpful. I upgraded from a 2016 Macbook Retina 12″ with Intel M5 (running Mojave) to the MacBook Air M1 512GB – and the battery life seems to be slightly worse than the Retina! I use my screen on both MacBooks at full brightness and the Retina with 100 tabs open in safari plus a couple in chrome is about on par with 5 tabs open in Safari and full brightness on the new Air. Close the tabs on the retina but keep the full brightness? The Retina edges out the M1 Air (also at full brightness). It’s a bit disappointing!
Thanks, James – glad you enjoyed the articles. And that is frustrating. Might be worth a quick check with Apple to ensure your battery is a-ok…
This was a great writeup, but what’s with Apple that everyone gives them a pass on BS like this? Seriously. So the computer is *brilliant*, as long as you basically don’t use it for anything other than 1st party apps, and this is somehow the fault of third party apps? Super bad precedent. Apple should get *slammed* for this really. When you consider how much hammering every other company takes for building closed ecosystem monopolies, using lock in to fuel endless profit, it’s surreal that Apple actually gets *praised* for it.
Thanks for the kind comment! The battery life on the M1 just needs some common sense; Apple can’t be held responsible for poor resource management on behalf of 3rd party developers. And the battery life is still top notch, regardless (and that standby time really is the star of the show).
I have my Mac air M1 at 100% brightness otherwise its too dingy for me to use. I get about 5 hours battery from it. Very disappointing
Regarding the standby time. Here’s what I’ve observed: Stellar and only goes down a few points over night, or a single point over night maybe. But, once you then use the mac, battery drains – with light use, only Apple apps mostly – very fast. Makes me think: Does the battery only “pretend” to be at still close to full charge after long standby period, but then reflects the reality quickly when you’re using it?
Best I’ve gotten out of my battery has been around 13.5 hrs, only using Apple native apps and few apps in total open. Worst I’ve had is 6 hours, also not using many apps at all. It’s been a bit unpredictable. And never, even with just native apps, have I ever achieved 20 hours or more, as some claim. Frustrating to focus on the battery all the time. Apple has set high expectations. I read quite a lot about it, ultimately I think we are dealing with different batteries here. Some are lucky and got a better battery, some aren’t as lucky. Could be Apple is procuring the battery from different suppliers, and one supplier is superior to the other.
That’s the best test I’ve seen so far. I mean most reviewers just typing and that say “hey great battery” It is not so easy. I don’t have M1 but I made a test MS Office vs Apple’s Apps. Pages vs Word and Numbers vs Excel. I opened monitor activity to look at the energy consumption. I found out that when I use them Apple’s apps use much more energy. It sounds ridiculous but it is true. Typing and and adding charts to Excel mens something around 70-100 of energy load. When I do the same at Number energy load goes much above 150. I didn’t expect that. The only thing where Apple’s apps are better it is idle state. Then they use less energy but still it is like 0,4 vs 0,1 or sometimes equal 0 so it is not a big factor.
Agreed. I use Outlook and Messages which are the only 2 apps open all the time, for notifications. BUT 11.5.1 definitely is the culprit for my battery life dwindling quickly away on my M1 Macbook Pro. Before that update I was getting 3 days (45-55 hours) on one charge with these apps open in the background all day and minimal use. Now, I have to charge every day and a half on 11.5.1.
I can’t downgrade to 11.5.0 and I can’t reinstall the OS because it says I can’t “downgrade the volume” (which leads me to believe that Apple does not place any faith in their 11.5.1 “update” if it’s not included in the most recent update when trying to reinstall a fresh version of MacOS). So I am stuck until Apple finally gets their act together and comes out with a new update to fix the battery drain.
Hi, 11.5.2 Just rolled out, fingers crossed!
I also am disappointed with battery..getting only about 4-5 hours with full bright screen (if its not I cant read properly). My 2018 15″ Dell XPS with full brightness still gives more than 8 hours without any issue. Very disappointed.
I do I get a full business day out of it as a software developer (8AM to 5 PM), with Outlook open, one note open, Skype open, and Safari, and various jet brains IDEs. I’ve also got a 65 watt battery back that gives me a couple extra hours of juice if I get into something big like using Premier or any other adobe app. Overall, it beats the heck out of my windows laptops. I was lucky to get a good 3 hours out of my i7 dell latitude. 3-4 out of a Lenovo flex 5.
Hi Mark,
i got my new Air M1 last August as a backup for my 6-year-old Macbook Pro which died on me last week. So now using Air for browsing (I use Chrome and have 2 windows with a number of tabs pinned + Chrome extensions), occasional Illustrator or Photoshop work, use Apple Music now and then… but my experience is NOT good.
This morning I started around 9 am with a full charged 100% battery, as I write this it is 11.30 am and battery is 37% (1 hour left). So I will not even get 4 hours of battery life.
THAT IS TRULY DISAPPOINTING IN MY OPINION…. AND I AM WONDERING…IS IT ONLY ME?
Are you still having this issue? If so you should take it to the apple store there’s clearly an issue. See my post, 6 hours of work today and little over 65% battery still remaining.
Are you still having this issue? If so you should take it to the apple store there’s clearly an issue. A whole day of work and only used 35% of the battery.
I just got my macbook air M1. I was thinking about returning it, thinking that there was a problem with it. But now I’m seeing other people complaining of the same issue! That’s very disappointing! I’m getting 4-5 hours! And it takes about 3-4h to charge! Not happy!
Interested to see if anyone in this list has seen improvements since upgrading OS. I’m up to six hours of usage: lots of web browsing, predominantly using Gsuite and a time and attendance website for work, 30 minute zoom meeting (app not browser) and a good portion of the day in and out of the slack app. I also did 30 minutes of work on the train in hotspot to my iPhone. My battery is currently sitting at 66%.
Maybe a revisit is required as anyone only getting five hours is either putting the system under heavy load (not what the Air is designed for) or has a faulty battery.
Been watching Youtube videos in Safari without a break since 8am this morning -laid up in bed as ill- and battery was at 100% when I opened the lid, now at 60%, I think I may just leave it playing videos on loop for the rest of the day, see how long it takes to exhaust.
Nothing else open in the background other than cleanmymac, adobe cloud was open for the first 3 hours till I spotted it and shut it down.
Honestly more and more apps will be designed and ported to M1, any Mac Native apps going forward should be designed for ARM so this will become less of an issue as time goes by. Apple will move away entirely from X86 so most Mac developers are already moving away too. I don’t have too many apps that I still use that aren’t ARM/Apple Silicon native. Users should be asking developers to move over because X86 apps are battery hogs and less efficient on all macs going forward.
Mine doesn’t last 8 hours without a charge, that’s only using an internet browser, and nothing else. Have been extremely disappointed with my M1 battery life (pro 13″), my 2011 Macbook Air was way better-could go days without a charge. It will deplete from 70% to less than 10% in a matter of 2-3 hours with nothing but a browser open (no streaming, no bluetooth active, no streaming on any browser tabs) with just a couple of tabs. $2k brand new computer, have been a mac customer for life but really disappointed with both this laptop and the iphone 12 mini which has also had major problems (heavy yellow tint on camera, haphazard notification issues, sound issues).
Interesting!
I’ve read other tests challenging Apple’s claims.
The thing is the claims are comparative so everyone will see different results. Another very big factor is whether or not the apps you are using are up to date for the M1 chip, if not then by default you will be running the apps in emulation and therefore really pushing the processor. As more and more software gets rewritten the situation will get better…in theory.
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