Getting 13-inch Touch Bar MacBook Pro? Expect Less Battery

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The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar costs $300 more than the model without and also comes with a more powerful CPU and more ports. But you do lose one thing: about an hour of battery life.

On the Laptop Mag Battery Test, which continuously browses the web over Wi-Fi, the Touch Bar model lasted 8 hours and 46 minutes while the version with function keys lasted 9:50.

MORE: Apple MacBook Pro 2016: Full Review

Besides powering the more powerful processor and Touch Bar, the more expensive model has a slight hindrance in a smaller battery. The traditional function row configuration carries a 54.5 watt-hour battery, but the version with the Touch Bar wields a 49.2 watt-hour battery, so it literally has to do more with less.

You can read our review of the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar here, the 13-inch MacBook Pro with function row review, and the 15-inch MacBook Pro review with Touch Bar.

We appreciated how small Apple managed to make every model, though the lack of choice in ports and the removal of the SD card slot means we'll be carrying lots of dongles around for a while. 

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Andrew E. Freedman

Andrew is a contributing writer at Laptop Mag. His main focus lies in helpful how-to guides and laptop reviews, including Asus, Microsoft Surface, Samsung Chromebook, and Dell. He has also dabbled in peripherals, including webcams and docking stations. His work has also appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, PCMag, Kotaku, and Complex. He fondly remembers his first computer: a Gateway that still lives in a spare room in his parents' home, albeit without an internet connection. When he’s not writing about tech, you can find him playing video games, checking social media and waiting for the next Marvel movie.