How long does it take to charge a macbook pro 15. How to get the most out of your MacBook battery and increase its lifespan. Correctly charging batteries for long service life

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Correctly charging batteries for long service life

Actively used laptops (Macbook Pro, Macbook Air), smartphones (iPhone) and tablets (iPad 4, iPad mini) constantly need to be recharged. However, not everyone knows how to charge correctly to extend the life of the battery. So you can hear two different opinions, one of which says that the battery of any mobile device, be it a MacBook Air or iPhone 5, should be completely discharged and then charged to 100%, and the second advises maintaining the device’s charge level at about 40- 80% by regularly recharging devices.

These tips are not without meaning and have a very real background. In the recent past, nickel batteries were common, which had the so-called “memory effect”. So they had to be completely discharged. Nowadays, laptops, smartphones and tablets (especially if we talk about Apple mobile devices) are mainly equipped with lithium-ion batteries, for which this problem is not so acute. However, in order to prolong their uninterrupted operation as much as possible, since their service life is measured in years, it is necessary to adhere to certain rules of use.

1. Devices require regular charging.

The device should not be completely discharged; it needs regular recharging. It would be optimal to recharge after the battery has been discharged by 10-20%, without lowering the charge level even to 50%.

2. It is unacceptable to keep devices charged for a long time.

Lithium-ion batteries do not need to be fully charged at all times. The recommended charge level should be between 40 and 80%, so it is advisable to adhere to these limits. After charging the device to 100%, it is unacceptable to leave it further charging.

Sometimes this seems very convenient, but you should remember that this is what can shorten the battery life. Even if the device is charged overnight, you should make sure that this is done using special energy-saving sockets that will allow you to turn off charging after a certain number of hours.

High-quality phones and laptops have a built-in charge controller, which allows them to signal when they are fully charged and even turn off charging themselves after that. Devices with this function can be kept connected to the network at all times.

3. Once a month, the battery must be discharged to zero and fully charged.

Occasionally, completely discharging your iPhone or iPad is still necessary. Once a month, it is recommended to carry out a full cycle of discharging to zero and charging to 100%, which allows you to calibrate the device. After all, on a smartphone or tablet, the remaining charge is most often indicated either as a percentage or in hours and minutes, after which complete discharge will occur. But frequent use of small charges leads to incorrect operation of this function, which is why it is necessary to perform calibration to return the accuracy of these readings.

4. It is unacceptable to overheat the device.

The battery life of, for example, an iPhone device may also be reduced due to overheating, so you should not allow it to be exposed to high temperatures.

By following these recommendations, you can significantly increase battery life. However, you should not panic too much if you are not always able to perform optimal charging. Even if the device is discharged once again to zero or there is a need to charge it to full before a long journey, this should not become a reason for unnecessary worries.

It is worth remembering that taking maximum care of a lithium-ion battery will not allow it to work forever; usually such a battery lasts only 2-3 years. By the way, it will last just as long even if it just lies unused. So you shouldn’t get hung up on strictly following the recommendations; you should stick to the regime that is convenient, but without neglecting and, if possible, using the above rules.

We have updated and improved this article to be better, more specific, based on the latest scientific research and combined with our more than 11 years of experience. It is available at this link.

The new MacBook Air, whose long-awaited release is due to take place soon, has caused a lot of controversy. The most criticized was Apple's decision to abandon all ports except the headphone jack and USB Type-C. The latter, due to its capabilities, should become a universal connector, responsible not only for connecting peripherals, but also external displays, as well as charging. Many were outraged, how can MagSafe be taken away from us? But let's not get excited and look at the possible solutions that Apple will use.

Perhaps the new MacBook Air will have battery life like an iPad

iPads have never had MagSafe, but hardly anyone complains about it. A tablet is a more mobile device with a longer battery life that is usually not used while charging. Following this logic, we can assume that the mobility of the new MacBook Air will be sufficient to change the usage scenario as in the iPad. The differences between MacBook and iPad lie in the form factor, as well as their use for different tasks and in different conditions. We hold the iPad in our hands while using it, so MagSafe is not necessary. Not so with the MacBook Air, and even assuming phenomenal battery life, you'll still need to charge it sometimes, which is where MagSafe would come in handy.

Additionally, the iPad's Lightning cable is significantly shorter than the MagSafe cable. If the new MacBook doesn't come with MagSafe, then perhaps Apple will provide it with a shorter cable, like the iPad, which in itself will reduce the possibility of tripping over it while charging.

Perhaps Apple will put MagSafe on the cable

If MagSafe doesn't fit in the case, what's stopping it from being placed somewhere on the cable, on the USB Type-C adapter, or on the charger itself? The adapter is not a very elegant solution, and it is also easy to lose. MagSafe at the charging connection point is also unlikely, so most likely it will take its place somewhere on the cable, closer to the laptop body.

Perhaps the new MacBook Air will be equipped with inductive charging like in Watch

A great idea that will appeal to most users, but there is one catch - there is no inductive technology yet that can provide enough current to charge a laptop. If any company could deliver something like this this year, it would be Apple. But there is another difficulty here - it is difficult to imagine the location of such a charger. If you place it at the bottom, the notebook will stand at an angle, the sides are too thin for this, and placement in the lid behind the display, for example, in the logo, would be ridiculous.

Apple produces high-quality and inexpensive products, and their technologies are quite different from competitors. Therefore, Apple gadgets require a slightly different approach than similar devices from other manufacturers. In this article, we will answer the most frequently asked questions regarding charging MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, and also provide recommendations to help you keep your MacBook's battery in the best condition.

How to protect and extend the life of your battery - in our new article

The most important criteria for every portable device are battery life, battery life and charging speed. Of course, Apple products are one of the most reliable, but incorrect or careless use will shorten their service life. Let's figure out how to increase and extend battery efficiency for maximum time.

• When you turn on your laptop for the first time, Apple recommends leaving it plugged in until the setup process is complete, as this process requires more power than normal operation. The charge indicator should reach 100%.
• For daily use, it is recommended to run the battery for a few hours and then charge your MacBook from a wall outlet.
• If you prefer to keep your laptop connected to the network all the time, then take advantage of another expert advice: completely discharge the device once a month. This monthly cycle of discharging and charging will extend its life.

Extending battery life

We remember important information: on average for 1000 cycles. Maximum performance lasts for about 500–700 cycles, after which it wears out, leading to a decrease in operating time. A run-up of 200 cycles is a lot, so let’s see what needs to be done to make the gadget last as long as possible.

• Sudden changes in temperature negatively affect the properties of the battery. Try to keep your laptop at room temperature as much as possible.
• If you do not plan to use the laptop for a while (for example, you are going on vacation), you should increase the charge level to 50% - these are optimal conditions for preserving battery capacity. You shouldn’t leave the device fully charged: this has a negative impact on the battery, and a gadget that has been turned off for a long time may not turn on at all.
• The MacBook battery doesn't like downtime and works much more efficiently with regular use.
• To increase your laptop's idle time, use the Energy Saver panel in System Preferences.
• The MacBook Pro has a handy "Dim screen slightly when on battery" setting that reduces screen brightness to 75% - use it.
• It is recommended to maintain a display brightness level that is minimally comfortable for you. The lower the constant brightness, the longer the battery will last.

Charge MacBook without charging

As we have already said, Apple technology differs significantly from its analogues in many respects. This also applies to laptop chargers: they have a completely different connector and power than laptops from other companies. This begs the question: how to charge a MacBook if you don’t have a proprietary charger at hand?

There are several ways to charge this way. Let's look at the main ones.

Method 1. Dangerous

Precisely because it is dangerous and will simply “kill” the battery if an inexperienced user intervenes, we will not dwell on it in detail. It consists in the fact that you need to connect the battery contacts with non-branded wires. If you are an electronics repair specialist, this method will suit you; we do not advise anyone else to carry out similar experiments. Those interested can watch a video on this topic on YouTube.

Method 2. Safe

For it we need a BatteryBox - a portable external rechargeable battery for Apple products with a capacity of 50 Wh. It comes with a proprietary MagSafe cord with the necessary connector. With this device you can charge your laptop without charging and even without access to an outlet.

BatteryBox - external battery for MacBook

BatteryBox performance:

• MacBook Pro - 6 hours of operation,
• MacBook Air - 12 hours of operation.

The BatteryBox weighs 300g, looks almost like an Apple charger, charges via MicroUSB and is rated for 3000 cycles - that is, at least 3 times longer than a laptop battery. Charging time is about 9 hours.

As you can see, charging your MacBook while preserving its batteries is easy. The main thing is to follow the manufacturer’s recommendations and use branded chargers, or, in their absence, specialized devices. If you have any other interesting information about properly charging your MacBook, welcome in the comments!

All new MacBooks, in which the usual interfaces have been replaced by newfangled USB Type-C, can be charged both from the mains and using external batteries (aka charging banks).

This was the decisive factor for me in giving up and switching to .

Now even the longest journey is not scary for me, because to the 8 hours of autonomy from the built-in battery, I managed to add the same amount from just one charging bank. And this is a victory.

Apple does not have any official explanations regarding charging the MacBook with external batteries. Therefore, we decided to create something like a guide based on personal tests, trial and error. Please.

What Apple itself says about charging the MacBook Pro

Apple insists that new MacBooks should be charged using power adapters that match the power of the ones it includes in the box.

• 29 W- for 12-inch MacBooks
• 61 W- for 13-inch MacBook Pro
• 87 W- for 15-inch MacBook Pro

However, Apple support emphasizes that you can use lower or higher power sources to charge new laptops.

When charging with less watts There simply won’t be enough power to fully use the MacBook.

When charging with a lot of watts There will be no harm to the device up to 100 W. Further - only at your own peril and risk.

If you're using a USB-C to VGA Multiport Adapter or a USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter, the built-in "C" port will only charge up to 60W of charging power, which may not be enough to fully power a 15-inch MacBook Pro.

If you connect several power sources to your MacBook Pro at once, it will use the most powerful one, regardless of the order in which you connected them.

Is it possible to charge a MacBook Pro with a regular jar?

Roma Yuryev also contributed his experiments in this direction. Then he was actually unable to fully use the charging banks with the 12-inch MacBook.

I tried using a USB-C to USB-A cable to connect the most common Xiaomi charging bank for 10,000 mAh (we’ll talk about the meaning of this and other similar values ​​later in the text), which can produce no more than 15-18 W (this is indicated on its back side).

The 2017 MacBook Pro notified me that it had a wall charger plugged into it, but its capacity never rose from 71% in a couple of hours.

Note that I'm also not saying that capacity dropped during two or three hours of low-performance work.

It turns out that due to its low power, such a charging bank simply cannot charge a 13-inch MacBook Pro. However, it is capable of powering it up and significantly increasing the laptop's battery life - by approximately 20-30%.

The figure is not very high, but it’s already something. It turns out that several of these cans on the road will not be useless for work or entertainment, which I will also try to check during the next train journey, which will take about two days.

In the end, it works. And that's great.

Which banks are best for charging a laptop?

But for charging new MacBooks, of course, special solutions that are already appearing on the market are better suited, including in the not-so-expensive segment.

One of the best solutions today is the ZMI 10 charging bank (consider it made by Xiaomi), which Kolya Maslov talked about not long ago.

For example, it is capable of delivering power not just 15-18, but already as much as 40-45 watts. And this is already enough to fully power a 13-inch MacBook Pro.

When working with text and Adobe Photoshop, it refilled my laptop battery by 1% in about 1-1.5 minutes. And its total volume was enough for me to charge the device from 0 to 100%, and I didn’t let it go completely.

New technologies used in such a bank allow it to be charged incredibly quickly. Imagine that a 20,000 mAh monster (this is when charging an iPhone) is fully capable fill in 3-3.5 hours when using a standard power supply from a MacBook Pro 2017.

Remember how long it took to charge banks of this size before - I once tried to fill a 16,000 mAh Xiaomi power bank with standard iPhone charging. 24 hours was not enough for this - the process took 35-40 hours.

How many times can a MacBook Pro be recharged?

20,000 mAh, 16,000 mAh, 10,000 mAh - all these are marketing indicators that really have a right to life, but they do not tell exactly how many times a power bank can fill a particular device.

The thing is that the battery capacity is actually changes at different voltages, at which charging occurs.

For example, the top-end external battery ZMI 10 claims 20,000 mAh at 3.8 V, at 5 V its capacity already reaches only 12,000 mAh, and at 7.2 V it is already less than 10,000 mAh.

The battery capacity is also determined in Wh. For example, in the 2017 13-inch MacBook Pro with and without Touch Bar, it is 49 Wh and 54.5 Wh, respectively.

The manufacturer claims that ZMI is capable of delivering 70.2-72 Wh. It turns out that he can charge such a laptop more than once. Almost, but not quite.

There are still nuances. The declared capacity of an external battery is usually greater than what it is actually willing to give away. There are losses, which depend on a variety of indicators beyond our control.

Therefore, in the end it turns out that we can only approximately guess how many times a particular device can actually be charged with an external battery. And the same ZMI 10 can fill my 13-inch MacBook Pro 2017 with Touch Bar from 0 to 100% and about 20% more. Normal

Our thoughts on the quality of all accessories

USB Type-C is a public standard, the use of which does not require certification from Apple or any other organizations.

That is why you need to be very careful with it, because if you connect something of poor quality through it, you can simply ruin the same MacBook.

For example, Apple generally recommends using only the supplied power adapter to charge it and insists that each USB Type-C cable must have a special serial number, which allows you to make sure that it is suitable for a particular laptop.

Official USB-C markings from Apple:

• If the first three characters of the serial number are C4M or FL4, the cable is designed for use with the Apple 29W USB-C Power Adapter.
• If the first three characters of the serial number are DLC or CTC, the cable is designed for use with the 61W or 87W Apple USB-C Power Adapter.

My personal practice shows that, in addition to official Apple accessories, you can use USB Type-C cables from Native Union, Nomad and other manufacturers that everyone knows without any problems.

Apple is very sensitive to the quality of components in its products and this also applies to batteries. The battery life of MacBooks is much longer than that of other laptops, however, over time it slowly begins to decline. To ensure that this moment comes as late as possible, there are a few simple tips by following which you can keep the battery in excellent condition throughout its entire service life, right up to the purchase of a new MacBook.

We will divide all recommendations into two categories, the first will help take care of your battery in the short term, that is, they are aimed at extending the battery life on a single charge; the latter are more forward-thinking and more concerned with preserving battery life over a long period of time.

Part 1: Increasing battery life

Using Energy Saving Options

The power saving settings in OS X are essentially minimal, but they work and this is also one of the ways to increase battery life.

Open system settings and go to the section Energy Saving. Using the sliders, we specify the time after which the display will turn off and your Mac will go into sleep mode. Also here you can specify whether to wake the computer from sleep mode to access the network and disk slowdown, which also affects energy savings.

In addition, you can use the scheduler to set it to automatically turn on/off, go to sleep, or reboot at specified times and days. This will be useful if you don't have to keep your MacBook constantly on, for example if you need to connect to it remotely when you're away from home.

Disabling Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and dimming brightness

Wireless interfaces are those features and technologies that continue to run in the background even when you're not using them, so you can safely turn them off if you don't need them at the moment. This way you can save about half an hour to an hour of battery life for tasks that do not require network activity. Experienced users know how to turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but for beginners, I’ll remind you that this can be done by clicking the corresponding icons in the menu bar (you can also turn them on again there).

In addition to this, it is worth mentioning the brightness of the display, which also puts a significant strain on the battery and reduces battery life. If you have the auto-brightness option disabled, I recommend turning it on. Well, don’t forget about manual adjustment using the function keys. Sometimes, in emergency cases, you can reduce the brightness level to the minimum comfortable level and last 30-40 minutes longer.

Disabling unnecessary peripherals

Obviously, powering peripheral devices connected to your MacBook puts additional strain on the battery, reducing battery life. It is advisable to disconnect all USB flash drives, hard drives, floppy drives and other equipment if you do not need them at the moment. If you have an internal SuperDrive installed, be sure to remove the drive from it as well.

Upgrading to OS X Mavericks

The current version of OS X 10.9 Mavericks, introduced last fall, is literally packed with features that are aimed at increasing energy efficiency. There is no point in listing them now, since we described in detail all the functions of Mavericks in a large review, but take my word for it that even old MacBooks after an update get a “second life” in terms of battery life.

If for some reason you have not yet updated, I strongly recommend that you do so, especially since the update is completely free and you can easily download it from the Mac App Store.

Part 2: Extending Battery Life

Battery diagnostics and monitoring

It is very important to monitor the health of your MacBook's battery, so you need to take care of this first. Any specialized utility will be suitable for these purposes, for example the free Battery Diag, which will tell you literally everything about your battery: initial and current capacity, battery health, number of cycles and much more. After installation, the application icon will be placed in the menu bar, from where you can find out the most complete information.

Using Battery Diag, in combination with other tips in this article, will allow you to identify various problems that in one way or another affect the battery life of your MacBook and its battery life.

Impact of temperatures

Operating temperatures have a significant impact on battery life. They usually depend on how you use and store your MacBook. Apple clearly indicates these temperatures, for example, for my MacBook Pro (and for yours too), the operating temperatures in which operation is allowed are in the range from +10º C to +35º C. It is emphasized that the best temperature is considered to be as close as possible to room temperature, that is +22º C. Basically, these recommendations are followed “automatically”, since we are all living people and we are also uncomfortable working at high or low temperatures. However, this should not be completely neglected, since there are people who like to lie with their MacBooks on beds or soft sofas, where they feel “hot” surrounded by pillows and due to the lack of natural air circulation. In such cases, it would not be superfluous to use a hard surface, a special stand or table.

Prevention

It is believed that modern lithium batteries do not require maintenance and therefore do not require special attention to charge-discharge cycles. However, some experts still recommend adhering to reasonable rules, namely: avoiding deep battery discharge and long-term operation from the network. With a deep discharge, I think it’s clear that this has a detrimental effect on the battery capacity. But periodic disconnection from the network and operation from the built-in battery is necessary because the MacBook is constantly connected to the network, the battery works under more difficult conditions than with slow charging and discharging in the range of 40-80%.

Thus, it is advisable to unplug your MacBook at least once a week and work on the battery, discharging it to 40-60%. And twice a year it is necessary to carry out a full cycle of discharging up to 20% (when the poppy itself asks for charging) and charging up to 100%.

Long-term storage

Poppy farmers rarely part with their pets for more than a few hours, but there are still situations when we have to go somewhere for a long time, leaving our aluminum friend with a bitten apple at home. In this case, as in operation, you need to adhere to simple rules.

Firstly, do not forget about the temperature regime. Apple allows storing its devices at temperatures from -25º C to +45º C, however, it is recommended that the temperature be as close as possible to +22º C. That is, you should not leave them in the summer sun on a windowsill or in an unheated room in winter.

Secondly, you need to remember about the battery, since during long-term storage it is the battery that suffers the most. Before leaving your MacBook for a long time (more than 6 months), discharge it approximately halfway and store it in this state; charging it to 100% is not recommended. And, of course, do not forget to turn it off completely in order to avoid deep discharge and possible loss of your data.

Do you have any questions, comments or suggestions? Welcome to the comments - I'm always happy to chat and help. Stay tuned, there is still a lot of interesting things to come!