I recently purchased a MacBook Air M4 last October and I'm curious about what kind of battery life I should expect from it, especially since it's still fairly new. Most of the time, I have it plugged in at home, connected to an external monitor. However, now that I've started using it away from home, I've been shocked to discover that I barely get 4 hours of battery life, even while just using basic applications like a word processor and a web browser. That seems low to me for a new laptop. Is this typical or should I be concerned?
3 Answers
Are you using Chrome? That browser is pretty notorious for draining battery life.
It's interesting you mention that. I’ve heard that macOS 26 might have impacted battery performance for the M4 Air, but it shouldn’t be too drastic. By the way, what's your battery health and cycle count looking like?
I’m not sure about the M4 specifically, but I've got an M1 Pro MacBook, and I can usually get through a whole workday on it easily.
I'm still on Sequoia OS. My battery health shows normal, and the cycle count is at 72. Can you explain what that cycle count means? Also, is it possible that I got a defective battery? I hadn't thought to check battery life since I usually keep it plugged in.