battery life results are odd on your apple m1 macbook video; redo the test or investigate further?

joshurar · January 26, 2021

Dear Linus,

In this video, you tested the battery life of two different M1 macbooks; the 13" macbook air and the 13" macbook pro. Your test resulted in just under 13h of battery life for the macbook air and just over 20h of battery life for the macbook pro. This result is pretty incredible for the macbook pro, and it resulted in a split recommendation. You liked the fanless design of the air, but the extra battery life on the macbook pro is pretty significant, over 50% more battery is nothing to scoff at!

But here's the thing. I'm looking at these machines that are basically structurally very similar in terms of what I would expect for power draw. I'm looking at the battery capacities (50wh vs 58wh). There's a ~15% difference there. That 15% difference seems to be more aligned with apple's rated figures and other independent battery tests I'm finding on the web.

I can't think of any reason the MBA would be pulling so much more power than the MBP. Do you think there's a chance that the tested was borked accidentally somehow? Is it worth repeating or investigating further? I'm just confused and I wonder if your recommendation would have been different if the results were more inline with the rest of the internet's testing that I've found so far.

Sources:

A different youtuber got 7:20 on MBA and 8:47 on MBP running his own test, around 15% difference.

Apple's cited figures are 15 vs 17 hours for wireless web, and 18 vs 20 hours for video playback, also in the ballpark of the relative difference in battery size (~15%)

Tomsguide test results for their own custom test is also in the same ballpark in terms of the difference between the two machines, 14:41 for the MBA, 16:32 for the MBP.