2 Months old MacBook Pro (Mid 2020) battery only last for 4 hours

Question

I'm new to the world of Apple, I bought a new Macbook Pro, mid-2020, Intel i7, 16GB RAM. I'm a developer, I run apps like VS Code, Sublime Text, Slack, Chrome (Multiple Windows), I play videos/songs in the background. I have been keeping a track of the energy consumption on my Mac, and it only runs for 4 hours. I have reset my SMC after I upgraded to Big Sur. Is 4 hours normal? or should I go to the service center?

Update on 3 Feb 2021: I submitted my Mac to the Apple service center they said they conducted a few tests and the conclusion was that the battery is fine (I don't know what type of test they did). So I guess I'll be using it on AC

Update on 12 Feb 2021: Took it to the service center, they didn't find any issues so I started using Safari for work and my battery has improved by 1 hour on Average.

Answer 1

You’re using Chrome. That is a known energy hog on macOS. You can observe this yourself by keeping Activity Monitor (/Applications/Utilities) open to the Energy tab while you’re working.

Long battery life on modern computing platforms is the result of massive, massive amounts of engineering across all levels of the software stack. It requires adopting certain APIs and adhering to certain behaviors & best practices, and so it only works when all your software is well-written and well-behaved. Apple tries to make it straightforward for developers to adopt energy-saving practices, but that doesn’t mean that all software will. In particular, large and cross-platform apps (such as Chrome) will deviate from recommended design patterns for one reason or another, and this often causes all sorts of issues with energy usage (not to mention stability, performance, security, and privacy).

Short story: Switch to Safari. Try it for a week. See if your battery life doesn’t double.

Answer 2

4 hours is not normal at all. It will need servicing.

Remember that unless your workspace has no AC power, it is perfectly acceptable to run from the power adapter.

Answer 3

You should download Coconut Battery. This is a free app for macs that checks your battery health. This is a way of confirming what you were told and you can use it to monitor battery health.