The M4 MacBook Pro announcement concluded Apple’s week of new Mac launches, and it’s no surprise Apple left the MacBook Pro for last. It’s easily the most exciting update of the three, considering that so many people buy Apple’s laptops. Sadly, there’s no M4 MacBook Air, as that refresh is coming sometime in early 2025.
While the 2024 laptops look just like their predecessors and seem to feature only a single big upgrade, the M4 chip, you should expect plenty of exciting features from the M4 MacBook Pros. One of them is better battery life than the previous-gen MacBook Pros.
The M4 MacBook Pro battery life is not that of a big surprise. Remember that Apple needed the M4 to make an incredibly powerful, ultra-thin iPad Pro that can last just as long as its predecessor despite featuring a thinner battery pack.
Those M4 efficiencies trickled down to the M4 MacBook Pro, which gets even better battery life than its predecessors. This practically guarantees that the M4 MacBook Air models will get their own battery boost in the not-too-distant future.
For now, we only have Apple’s battery life estimates for the M4 MacBook Pro, so we’ll compare them to the previous generation MacBook Pro and the M3 MacBook Airs.
Apple uses video streaming and wireless web browsing to measure battery life, and the M4 models come on top in all these rankings. Let’s check them out:
Video Streaming
- MacBook Pro 14-in. (M4) – up to 24 hours
- MacBook Pro 14-in. (M4 Pro) – up to 22 hours
- MacBook Pro 14-in. (M4 Max) – up to 18 hours
- MacBook Pro 16-in. (M4 Pro) – up to 24 hours
- MacBook Pro 16-in. (M4 Max) – up to 21 hours
- MacBook Pro 14-in. (M3) – up to 22 hours
- MacBook Pro 14-in. (M3 Pro or M3 Max) – up to 18 hours
- MacBook Pro 16-in. (M3 Pro or M3 Max) – up to 22 hours
- MacBook Air 13-in. (M3) – up to 18 hours
- MacBook Air 15-in. (M3) – up to 18 hours
Wireless web
- MacBook Pro 14-in. (M4) – up to 16 hours
- MacBook Pro 14-in. (M4 Pro) – up to 14 hours
- MacBook Pro 14-in. (M4 Max) – up to 13 hours
- MacBook Pro 16-in. (M4 Pro) – up to 17 hours
- MacBook Pro 16-in. (M4 Max) – up to 14 hours
- MacBook Pro 14-in. (M3) – up to 15 hours
- MacBook Pro 14-in. (M3 Pro or M3 Max) – up to 12 hours
- MacBook Pro 16-in. (M3 Pro or M3 Max) – up to 15 hours
- MacBook Air 13-in. (M3) – up to 15 hours
- MacBook Air 15-in. (M3) – up to 15 hours
As you can see above, the M4 MacBook Pro models get up to two hours of extra battery life compared to their predecessors in Apple’s specific tests. The M4 MacBook Pros are identical to their predecessors when it comes to dimensions. Therefore, the battery life gains must come from the chip efficiency improvements rather than Apple squeezing larger batteries inside the laptops.
I’d expect the same thing to happen with the M4 MacBook Airs early next year. They should feature the same design as the M3 series. I wouldn’t be surprised to see similar battery gains for the M4 MacBook Airs. That’s up to two hours of extra video streaming and web browsing.
Soon, we’ll have battery tests putting the M4 MacBook Pros through real-life usage scenarios that involve more than streaming video and browsing the web. As a reminder, one such test called the M3 MacBook Pro battery life epic about a year ago. I expect the M4 MacBook Pro to do even better than that.
