Since its unveiling at WWDC 2022, users have been wondering how much battery life has improved for laptops running the new M2 chip — and it’s already impressed testers.
Both the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro have been updated with the M2 chip, the successor to Apple’s Silicon program announced two years ago. The speed, power and battery life of the M1 chip and its successor derivatives were impressive, beating out previous Macs with Intel chips. In our early testing of the M2 MacBook Pro, however, its battery life easily lasted a workday, with more than 15 hours of battery life.
A 24-hour MacBook Pro doesn’t seem far away
Apple’s chip team has been running since it announced the switch from Intel chips to its own. In my own testing while playing in Parallels Desktop, I was blown away by how well Metal Gear Solid V and other games ran at 1440p.
My MacBook Pro has the M1 Pro chip – it looks like a halfway point between M1 and M2. This is mainly due to the fact that my graphics card has extra cores compared to the M1, which is likely the reason for the excellent performance I got from testing.
However, the battery still impresses me. I can run at least five apps and open six tabs in Chrome and Safari without the Mac hitting 10% after seven hours.
With Apple looking to refresh the MacBook Pro lineup with faster speeds and better batteries, it’s inevitable that I’ll see the M2 Pro chip arrive by the end of 2022. We’re not far from seeing a Mac run all day, and the iPhone is getting closer, and the M2 Pro could make that happen.
Put it in the M3 gear
Apple‘s speed of improvement on the M1 chip and above is impressive, and while I can only speculate on the M3 Pro, I’m confident that this is a major upgrade for users who want to play games on their Mac. Especially Announced at WWDC, Metal 3, along with the upcoming Resident Evil Village and No Man’s Sky, has a lot to look forward to.
I can see that playing Metal Gear Solid V again with Parallels Desktop may result in higher frame rates at higher graphics settings, as if the game had been ported to macOS.
Of course, I’m happy with my 14-inch MacBook Pro; it’s the best Mac I’ve had in the 20 years I’ve owned an Apple computer.
However, we’re getting close to the tipping point for these chips, and it’s not impossible to imagine playing Metal Gear on the highest settings. For me, that gets me excited about what my next Mac upgrade might bring when 2024 arrives.
>>>>>>>>>>>Apple battery