Toward the end of last week, I received a new 16” MacBook Pro M2. Prior to this, I was using the last Intel 16” MacBook Pro. I haven’t fully set up this new M2, but I’ve used it enough over the past few days to note one thing quite clearly.

The difference in battery life between the Intel MacBook Pro and this M2 MacBook Pro is drastic. Rediculously so.

Even when new, the Intel (i9 version) rarely lasted more than 2-3 hours on a full battery charge. Granted, I was likely working in Xcode at the time, but the projects were small and quick to build. More recently, most of my time on the Intel was spent surfing the web or watching video on YouTube or other websites. It still struggles to get much beyond 2 hours before reaching zero battery from a full charge.

I’m guesstimating that this M2 MacBook Pro has been in use for about an hour each day for the last 5 days and is sitting happily at 73%, with iStat Menus estimating about 13 hours of use left to go.

This is what a laptop should be like. The only thing I really disliked about the Intel MacBook Pro was the dismal battery life. I’m loving this upgrade for the battery improvement alone. I’m looking forward to getting it fully set up and trying out some other workloads on it (getting back to Xcode included).