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That’s what I’ve been doing on the M1 MacBook Air. 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). The other option? Close those battery-hogging apps whenever you’re not using them. 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.
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Instead, I decided to switch from desktop to web app for platforms like Trello. I’d also have to ditch one or two apps I need in order to run my business. If I acted on every piece of advice offered for improving the battery performance, I’d be left with Apple’s stock apps. “Did you have Slack open all day? That’s probably why.” “Spark Email is known to be a real resource hog on Macs. 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. Because, as I’ve discovered, if you use it normally, it only drains slightly slower than Intel generation MacBooks. You have to think about your usage if you want to be impressed by the battery life. 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.
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Even my 16” MacBook Pro is pretty decent in that regard – until you start doing any form of heavy-lifting. However, we should keep in mind that Apple’s laptops have enjoyed great battery life for a number of years now. The same goes for the M1 MacBook Pro, which manages to squeeze an additional two hours out of the day. The M1 MacBook Air’s battery is great, but there’s a “but”ĭon’t get me wrong – the battery life on the M1 MacBook Air is superb for a modern laptop. However, since then, I’ve once again started to question my original assessment of the battery performance on the M1 MacBook Air. 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. The results were pretty interesting.Īs 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). 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. I admit that I’m among the many people who have celebrated the M1 MacBook Air’s battery life.
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