Hi guys,

I have a 16' MacBook M2 Pro and if I don't play any games on it, I can get 3-4 days out of it but if I play Angry Birds from Apple Arcade, I am noticing that it absolutely rinses my battery, easily 10%+ per hour. I mean this is just a little windowed mode game I play in my downtime but I definitely notice the difference in battery compared to not playing it.

Is that normal? Does a little 2D phone game really give this type of machines battery a run for it's money, or is there some foul play going on? This is also a brand new, out of the box machine with no external software installed.

Yes, it's normal. 10 hours of battery life playing a game is better than most laptops get.

bobcomer said:

Yes, it's normal. 10 hours of battery life playing a game is better than most laptops get.

I would wholeheartedly agree with you, if it wasn't for the fact I am just playing a very basic 2D mobile game. I would have thought the 10 hours estimate is for more GPU intensive video games, such has full screen, full scale 3D rendering.

shenfrey said:

Hi guys,

I have a 16' MacBook M2 Pro and if I don't play any games on it, I can get 3-4 days out of it but if I play Angry Birds from Apple Arcade, I am noticing that it absolutely rinses my battery, easily 10%+ per hour. I mean this is just a little windowed mode game I play in my downtime but I definitely notice the difference in battery compared to not playing it.

Is that normal? Does a little 2D phone game really give this type of machines battery a run for it's money, or is there some foul play going on? This is also a brand new, out of the box machine with no external software installed.

Click to expand...

lol you should try tomb raider, 50% battery in an hour.

shenfrey said:

I would wholeheartedly agree with you, if it wasn't for the fact I am just playing a very basic 2D mobile game. I would have thought the 10 hours estimate is for more GPU intensive video games, such has full screen, full scale 3D rendering.

the 10 hour estimate is for web browsing, social media, and youtube stuffs.

ilikewhey said:

lol you should try tomb raider, 50% battery in an hour.

Oh really? Yikes!

shenfrey said:

I would wholeheartedly agree with you, if it wasn't for the fact I am just playing a very basic 2D mobile game. I would have thought the 10 hours estimate is for more GPU intensive video games, such has full screen, full scale 3D rendering.

You have the display on, and that's probably is taking up more battery than the processing, and you really don't know how they programmed angry birds, it might be inefficient as heck. And never trust what any manufacturer says about battery times, their tests are under very controlled conditions and don't ever match real usage.

I got 6 hour battery times on my M1 MBA, doing my normal work load, not even games....

shenfrey said:

Hi guys,

I have a 16' MacBook M2 Pro and if I don't play any games on it, I can get 3-4 days out of it but if I play Angry Birds from Apple Arcade, I am noticing that it absolutely rinses my battery, easily 10%+ per hour. I mean this is just a little windowed mode game I play in my downtime but I definitely notice the difference in battery compared to not playing it.

Is that normal? Does a little 2D phone game really give this type of machines battery a run for it's money, or is there some foul play going on? This is also a brand new, out of the box machine with no external software installed.

Click to expand...

That is likely due to how the game was coded. Outside of the developers issuing an update, there's really not a lot that you could do besides lowering the display brightness to improve battery life running that game.