More efficiency, more performance. When you are already the best, you don’t need a significant jump in performance. Battery efficiency though? The battery life on these Mac’s is already outstanding, but I will always want more. The dream is a battery that never runs out 😁
I just got the 2023 MBP 16" (base model) and honestly I’m insanely impressed with the battery life. I work in the living room from about 8am to 6pm and have ended the day with ~20% battery life. So when they say all day battery life they aren’t kidding.
Obviously if I’m on non-stop zoom meetings or doing more intensive stuff it might not last, but so far its been impressive.
if you turn on power saving mode when you’re doing light tasks the laptop runs forever at 50% brightness.
I find myself doing that like twice a month so it’s not a concern at all, battery life is phenomenal for the power these machines have while producing minimal heat and being completely silent.
The battery life is amazing with lightweight workloads. Unfortunately when doing anything more it becomes fairly mediocre. With my normal dev work it lasts about 2-3 hours at best.
You running a ton of containers or something? I have a fairly intensive set of Docker containers running at all times and still usually get a full-ish work day out of my M1 Pro MBP
Yeah, Apple’s secret sauce isn’t necessarily perf/watt in an all-core load (although they’re obviously near the top there as well) but in idle power consumption. I’m guessing that M3 does better here, but I remember seeing a Phoronix test/review that showed that when capped at 15 W, the latest Ryzen laptop CPU beats the M2 in all-core workloads, although the M2 gets better battery life in “normal” workloads.
I have the 16 Pro Max that’s always plugged in, so I had no idea how good the battery life was. Went to the office a few days ago and forgot the charger at home and was planning on asking people if they got a spare charger. Finished the working day on 25%. That’s more than enough for me.
MacOS has a built in 80% limiter for Macs that stay plugged in a lot. There is even a menu bar option to trigger a charge to 100% before needing to leave.
Buy a desktop/Mac Studio. That’s literally what they’re for. Want or need to work remote? Use an iPad to remote into your desktop for performance. These days the only reason to buy a workstation laptop is if you need performance remotely somewhere that doesn’t have good internet or you’re mobile 75% of the time.
IPad will never be a full replacement for a workstation and remoting is definitely more finnicky and often laggy with a ton of security risks you have to worry about than just having a laptop. Not to mention literally everything is better and more capable on the laptop. The screen is gonna suck on the iPad for work being so damn small and you don’t have anywhere near the same feature set.
If you travel especially it’s better to have a dedicated laptop as well since you don’t have to worry about internet at all for many tasks and can actually use it on the move including planes. Everything including the actual OS is better for mobile use. Only exception is maybe drawing, but 95% of folks don’t really do that for a living. I agree with looking into a desktop machine in general if you aren’t traveling though.
Edit: I feel like I should add that you should never expose your computer’s remote access software to the internet. Use a VPN server or Reverse Proxy setup. Both can be done easily using a Raspberry Pi.
It can be pretty clumsy on Windows but I’ve found that Apple’s server/client works pretty well, at least over a LAN. Not sure what the iPad client situation is like.
It’s clumsy over a LAN, nevermind the Internet. Apple’s VNC is not a patch on something like Microsoft’s RDP. It’s a poor solution, and depends on you having a good connection at the remote end. And you’ll also be using a tiny iPad screen. If you buy an iPad Pro and Magic folio and a Mac Studio then you’ve probably spent as much as a MacBook Pro.
exactly. Chromes Remote Desktop is the best solution ive found that’s not paid and it’s still got nothing on Microsofts RDP. im convinced they haven’t actually done any real work on it. just get a MacBook Pro as you said and call it a day
Same, these are Pro machines designed for Pros who need performance. I have an M1 Pro 16" machine and the battery life is already more than enough to get me through the day.
More efficiency, more performance. When you are already the best, you don’t need a significant jump in performance. Battery efficiency though? The battery life on these Mac’s is already outstanding, but I will always want more. The dream is a battery that never runs out 😁
in my home, we do not violate the Laws of Physics.
In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
Well, then I’m going to build my own home, with cocaine and perpetual motion machines.
Violate the law of gravity at your own risk at MY house
I just got the 2023 MBP 16" (base model) and honestly I’m insanely impressed with the battery life. I work in the living room from about 8am to 6pm and have ended the day with ~20% battery life. So when they say all day battery life they aren’t kidding.
Obviously if I’m on non-stop zoom meetings or doing more intensive stuff it might not last, but so far its been impressive.
if you turn on power saving mode when you’re doing light tasks the laptop runs forever at 50% brightness.
I find myself doing that like twice a month so it’s not a concern at all, battery life is phenomenal for the power these machines have while producing minimal heat and being completely silent.
The battery life is amazing with lightweight workloads. Unfortunately when doing anything more it becomes fairly mediocre. With my normal dev work it lasts about 2-3 hours at best.
You running a ton of containers or something? I have a fairly intensive set of Docker containers running at all times and still usually get a full-ish work day out of my M1 Pro MBP
I usually get around 10 hours doing front-end dev and design work.
on Max or Pro chip?
Yeah, Apple’s secret sauce isn’t necessarily perf/watt in an all-core load (although they’re obviously near the top there as well) but in idle power consumption. I’m guessing that M3 does better here, but I remember seeing a Phoronix test/review that showed that when capped at 15 W, the latest Ryzen laptop CPU beats the M2 in all-core workloads, although the M2 gets better battery life in “normal” workloads.
I have the 16 Pro Max that’s always plugged in, so I had no idea how good the battery life was. Went to the office a few days ago and forgot the charger at home and was planning on asking people if they got a spare charger. Finished the working day on 25%. That’s more than enough for me.
If it is plugged in most of the time you might want to consider “AlDente”.
MacOS has a built in 80% limiter for Macs that stay plugged in a lot. There is even a menu bar option to trigger a charge to 100% before needing to leave.
Yeah but it that one doesn’t always trigger for me, and it does stay plugged in a lot.
I check mine periodically and it seems to work all the time. Are you on the latest MacOS and patch level?
Not required on modern Mac. Have not used it and compared my battery health to those who have and my health is better with more cycles.
Optimised battery charging never correctly figures out my habits which are very random, so I use Al Dente.
Yes, I too would like for humanity to invent perpetual motion
As a developer who spends 99% of the time docked to a monitor though I’d happily take performance over efficiency…
Buy a desktop/Mac Studio. That’s literally what they’re for. Want or need to work remote? Use an iPad to remote into your desktop for performance. These days the only reason to buy a workstation laptop is if you need performance remotely somewhere that doesn’t have good internet or you’re mobile 75% of the time.
IPad will never be a full replacement for a workstation and remoting is definitely more finnicky and often laggy with a ton of security risks you have to worry about than just having a laptop. Not to mention literally everything is better and more capable on the laptop. The screen is gonna suck on the iPad for work being so damn small and you don’t have anywhere near the same feature set.
If you travel especially it’s better to have a dedicated laptop as well since you don’t have to worry about internet at all for many tasks and can actually use it on the move including planes. Everything including the actual OS is better for mobile use. Only exception is maybe drawing, but 95% of folks don’t really do that for a living. I agree with looking into a desktop machine in general if you aren’t traveling though.
What do you use to remote in from your iPad?
VNC client works well.
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/allow-apple-remote-desktop-to-access-your-mac-mh11851/mac
https://support.apple.com/guide/remote-desktop/welcome/mac
Edit: I feel like I should add that you should never expose your computer’s remote access software to the internet. Use a VPN server or Reverse Proxy setup. Both can be done easily using a Raspberry Pi.
VNC is horrible to do actual productive work on. I doubt you do this to actually work a full day
It can be pretty clumsy on Windows but I’ve found that Apple’s server/client works pretty well, at least over a LAN. Not sure what the iPad client situation is like.
It’s clumsy over a LAN, nevermind the Internet. Apple’s VNC is not a patch on something like Microsoft’s RDP. It’s a poor solution, and depends on you having a good connection at the remote end. And you’ll also be using a tiny iPad screen. If you buy an iPad Pro and Magic folio and a Mac Studio then you’ve probably spent as much as a MacBook Pro.
exactly. Chromes Remote Desktop is the best solution ive found that’s not paid and it’s still got nothing on Microsofts RDP. im convinced they haven’t actually done any real work on it. just get a MacBook Pro as you said and call it a day
I was recently turned on to NoMachine and have been testing it. I’m fairly impressed with it’s performance.
https://www.nomachine.com/
Though fair warning the client (and server for that matter) are a bit janky by end-user standards.
Same, these are Pro machines designed for Pros who need performance. I have an M1 Pro 16" machine and the battery life is already more than enough to get me through the day.
I really hope this thing came true in the near future as car companies / renewable energy in general are pouring huge money in research right now.