His “as tested” was 11 hours for AMD and 13 for M1. His “max time use” for AMD was 14.5 and 20 for M1. That’s a 38% greater time for the M1 in a best possible outcome and 18% on “average”. Substantial differences that users would perceive noticeably.
I’m not so sure. I think it reaches a meaningful maximum. Can I do an entire days work on the laptop? Yes to both. Can it last an entire flight, even a long one? Yes to both.
It’s not that it doesn’t matter at all, it’s just that it matters a lot less once you’ve checked boxes like that. The effective experience of both would be “you only need to charge it overnight”
For me it's always been "how desperately do I need to find an AC outlet" with my laptops. I've been pretty happy with my M1 MBA in that regard because the answer has been "not desperate at all". I've done a couple weekend trips since getting it and I never even thought of getting the power adapter out of my bag the entire trip. This was despite doing a bit of work.
The same can't be said for the MBPs I've owned over the past decade. They get ok battery life but I always needed to know where the nearest outlet was. While an 11 hour Ryzen might be close to a 13 hour MBA, those extra two hours is the difference between a full weekend worth of work or just a full day.
For anyone wanting long battery life in a laptop those extra couple hours are important.
What the sibling says, but you've also got to take battery degradation into account. Even at 80% of its original battery life, an M1 Macbook Pro/Air will still give you a full day's usage.
Just to admit something odd I do in public. I've started using my lithium powered devices between the 40%-80% charge range. i.e. I plug it in when it's at or around 40% left charged and unplug it when it's 80% charged or around there. I'd read that's what Tesla drivers recommend for maximizing the life of their batteries. Don't know how much it translates to phones/computers. 40% of 20 hours is 8 hours...
It has less battery life and less performance (judging by Cinebench, at least), so it is a fairly substantial difference. And it's quite possible that Apple will remain one TSMC process ahead of AMD for the next few years, even if AMD do put out 5nm chips in the near future.
This doesn't contain any comparison graphs relevant to my question, and couldn't, because it's from November. The Ryzen 5000 mobile chips came out this year.
