Owners of older machines won’t see any noticeable improvements, though

Mar 27, 2013 12:01 GMT  ·  By

It’s been a while since Apple rolled out OS X 10.8.3, its third Mountain Lion update. Just enough time to see how the software fares in terms of battery life on some of the newest MacBook Pro computers.

Tests ran by the Mac Observer on a 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display from 2012 have revealed positive results.

The site reportedly tested each beta build of 10.8.3 on several MacBooks as they were being released and, “starting with build 12D76, we saw a noticeable jump in battery life on the rMBP,” it states.

The computer’s running time used to peak at 398 minutes, but on OS X 10.8.3, that number shot up to 421 minutes, “a change that persisted with the final build.”

Other MacBook computers were taken through the same tests with negative results. Specifically, 2011 models did not experience a similar boost in battery life, which indicates that Apple made a priority out of its newest notebooks.