Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large. 

The laptop part of a laptop

I’ve owned this fantastically engineered Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch (M1 Max) for two and a half years now. The laptop has spent most of that time docked to an external monitor. On a recent curious check with the coconutBattery app, this very MacBook Pro I am typing on has only got 14 battery cycles on it. Perhaps I should have bought a Mac mini instead…

Ah yes, I remember why I bought a beefy Mac laptop instead of a desktop. If life situation ever changes, and I need to move in quick order, a laptop is far easier to haul around with me. My entire digital life in a four and half pound machine. I would sell the monitor and the extra nice-to-have peripherals, and take just the MacBook Pro.

It used to be that it’s superbly unhealthy for laptop batteries to be constantly plugged into power. At my work, I’ve seen plenty of bulging batteries due to users never using their laptops as a laptop. However, in recent years, Apple has done a tremendous job in managing its laptop batteries - automatically - within the operating system. MacOS learns the usage pattern and adjusts the charge levels accordingly. My MacBook Pro is kept at a 80 percent charge at all times, because I never take unplug it from the monitor.

I was pleasantly surprised to read in the same coconutBattery report the battery still has 96% of its design capacity. To put it another way: it has only degraded 4% from new. I am very happy with that. Barring some unexpected monetary windfall that probably should go towards investments, I plan to use this M1 Max MacBook Pro for many more years. It’s good to see the battery is self-managed for maximum longevity.

What the heck are you doing, Windows laptop manufacturers?

Village life.

That's exactly how it works

It seems people like to fight against the laws of physics.

I had one customer come in saying the battery life on her 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro is not to her satisfaction. Duh - of course not! A Mac laptop with an Intel processor and a three-year-old battery is not going to have great battery life. Degradation alone (roughly 20%, I later found out using coconutBattery) will negatively affect the experience continuously. The laptop will never be as good as it were fresh out of the box. That’s just the way it is with any device that runs on battery - even that Tesla Model Y of yours.

On top of that, I found out the user prefers to crank up the display brightness to the maximum, with a dozen apps running concurrently. Sorry, even the laptop with the best-rated battery life will suffer under those usage conditions.

Another customer brought in a Dell Precision 7680 workstation laptop complaining of, you guessed it, adverse battery life. He said the battery was draining even when the laptop is plugged into power. Unfortunately, that is by design. That Precision laptop features a desktop-grade Intel processor and an Nvidia RTX secondary GPU. Meaning: it will run very hot and draw lots of power. So much power that the 240-watt AC adapter cannot supply enough juice under full load - hence the aforementioned battery drain.

You cannot buy a glorified gaming PC laptop and then expect excellent battery life. That’s like buying a full-size truck and then complain about the horrible gas mileage. Laws of physics remain undefeated.

Before Nissan.

Don't buy used

Word on the street is that Ford has (again) lowered pricing on its Mustang Mach E electric car. The base real-wheel drive version can now be had for (just) under $40,000. Ford is also throwing in $7,500 on leases. Combining with the federal EV tax credit of another $7,500 makes the base Mach E a highly attractive option if you just need a simple electric runabout. I would consider one if I actually needed a car.

And because I wouldn’t want to buy a used electric vehicle. You simply cannot trust it. The thing no one seems to be talking about is battery degradation. Much like the battery in our smartphones, the cells in electric cars degrade with use and time. But how much it degrades does not scale linearly with mileage. Depending on the usage pattern - how often it’s charged, how fast, to what level, etc - an EV with 50,000 miles can potentially have a healthier battery than a 20,000 miler.

This is a critical piece of information in electric vehicles because the battery is everything. A degraded battery cannot motivate the car to the same number of miles as new on once charge. At least with a combustion car you can expect the same range in a high-mileage gas engine.

The problem is we have no way of knowing about battery degradation. The electric cars (currently) don’t show the health percentage (our smartphones do). Venturing into the vast menu of a Tesla Model 3 doesn’t reveal this information. I think manufacturers should include battery health indicators, plus showing how much maximum range has been lost as well. As I said, range in an electric car is everything.

Outlaw.

Not enough juice

We are about two months away from the annual new iPhone launch in September (typically). I cannot wait to get a new one this year, because the battery life on my current iPhone 14 Pro has been the worse I’ve ever used. (And I’ve had every single iPhone since the 7.) The iPhone is famous for robust battery life compared to the Android competition. In my experience, this has been very true. I’ve never had to plug my iPhone in mid-day to top up the battery ever. It’s never gone down past 20% at the end of the day even in my heaviest usage days.

That is, until the iPhone 14 Pro. 10 months in, the battery life have not held up to standards. These days I’m down to 20% by the time I get home from work in the early evening. Mind you this is without any heavy usage of social media apps whatsoever. I’m only chatting with friends on Signal and reading ebooks on Kindle. I joked to my friends that I’ve become just like them: having to charge the phone battery during the day, otherwise risk running out of juice.

The forthcoming iPhone 15 Pro could have zero new features - only improved battery life, and I would still happily do the yearly upgrade.

Obviously, this is the most first world of problems. Here’s some quick perspective to bring me back down to earth. A new coworker of mine recently remarked that in all of his previous jobs, he’s never had the major holidays off. In the typical service industry-type jobs, the holidays is when you definitely have to show up for work. That’s where the money is made: restaurants needs tables filled, shows need to go on, and parcels need delivering. That coworker’s remark is a humbling reminder that I’m so lucky to only have had jobs where major holidays are actually a thing.

It reminded me of my younger (than me by 10 years) brother. He’s currently working his way up from the bottom at entry-level service jobs. There are no holidays off. And should he wish to take any time off, he has to find others to cover his shift. A two week vacation? He can certainly take one, but just don’t come back to work afterwards. It’s tough work for not that much pay. Fingers crossed he can eventually find a job that provide proper benefits and time off - like my coworker did.

The cord of shame!

Not so simple

My set of first-generation AirPods are on their last legs. A charge barely lasts one hour before I need to put them back in the case for a battery top up. One hour is not enough for a workout session, so I don’t use them for that. I also don’t use the AirPods for voice calls, as they would likely last only about 30 minutes. To me, these earphones have become effectively useless

It’s not that surprising: I bought these AirPods just after initial launch, way back in 2017. After five solid years of use, I somewhat expect the battery to go from its rated five hours of listening time down to just one. Battery aside, my AirPods are still functionally fine. Nothing is broken, nothing is falling off. What would be ideal then is to replace the battery and continue using them. Instead of buying a new set and tossing the old units into landfill.

A greener, most holistic approach to tech products nearing end of life.

Quick search on Apple reveals that there is battery replacement available for the AirPods. $49 dollars (as indicated) is not a bad price to get (hopefully) another five years of use. I quickly made a Genius Bar appointment at the local Apple Store.

Sadly, it was a bit of false advertising. Turns out, Apple absolutely does not perform battery replacement on AirPods. The company will simply swap out for another unit. The cost of which is more expensive that buying a new complete set of AirPods. That $49 figure earlier? That’s the cost to replace the charging case! At least the guy at the Genius Bar agreed the website is somewhat deceptive. He even commented that it’s Black Friday, and sales on AirPods are everywhere where electronics are sold.

Apparently, replacing the battery on AirPods is incredibly difficult. Which is probably why Apple doesn’t do it. The material and labor cost would make the procedure cost prohibitive. It is indeed cheaper and less hassle to buy a new pair. I guess I’m just dismayed at the disposability of it all. Companies ought to design with an eye towards longevity and reparability.

Then again, I’m the guy who gets a new iPhone every year…

Doesn’t have to be AirPods, does it?