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Accurate & Best Battery Estimator? (11 inch thread only): < 8 hrs Battery

J

johnjey

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 17, 2013
245
2
Northern CA
Just like a gazillion others, i am also looking for something that can give me a clear, correct and reliable "estimated battery left" information:

I am trying to estimate battery life of 2013 11' i5/8GB/512 SSD machine: I am currently on the 11th battery recharge cycle: Machine is now 1+week old.

I know the Battery estimates DEPENDS on the usage. However, we still need a solid application that can do accurate estimates based on the usage (for example, if i am playing netflix HD --> the sure-shot battery killer --> then we need to know accurately the estimated time left and not have to see FOUR different times displayed by these 4 different applications)

I have:

1. Coconut Battery

2. Istat --> stupid wideget --> useless estimates (anywhere from 65 hours to 11 hours to ...u simply can't rely on this for battery estimates)

3. Apple OS Battery Indicator isn't doing a good job either

4. Interestingly, battery is NEVER 100% charged and is max charged at 99% (as per ISTAT) and Coconut shows maximum charge of i think around 5000+k but NOT the complete 5257mah (The actual battery capacity)

I have been using this machine for 10 days now...

Overall,This 2013 11 inches Macbook Air HAS NOT given me 8 HOURS battery life (i know Apple said UPTO 9) if you use it like a business user with 12 emails flying out, 7-8 email accounts (mac-mail), multiple browsers (multiple tabs), music playing, bluetooth-wifi always ON of-course, MS Office apps always running (excel, word, ppt's), multiple mac softwares like ADIUM, evernote, dropbox etc.. (and lets include an exception that you never played a netflix while doing all this) and played 40 mins of regular flash video


And my worst fears are what will happen when i will install :

PARALLELS and VMWARE FUSION on to this machine for Windows 8 usage

If anyone of you 11 inch users have been able to achieve 8 hours with the usage i am talking about as above, please share....and 13 inch Fan-boys ==> Please DO NOT respond to this 11 inch specific thread with your 12+ hours of batter life as that doesn't make a dime difference to us 11'inch fanboys :)

Thanks Guys !
 
luisito

luisito

macrumors regular
Nov 15, 2012
215
0
johnjey said:
Just like a gazillion others, i am also looking for something that can give me a clear, correct and reliable "estimated battery left" information:

I am trying to estimate battery life of 2013 11' i5/8GB/512 SSD machine: I am currently on the 11th battery recharge cycle: Machine is now 1+week old.

I know the Battery estimates DEPENDS on the usage. However, we still need a solid application that can do accurate estimates based on the usage (for example, if i am playing netflix HD --> the sure-shot battery killer --> then we need to know accurately the estimated time left and not have to see FOUR different times displayed by these 4 different applications)

I have:

1. Coconut Battery

2. Istat --> stupid wideget --> useless estimates (anywhere from 65 hours to 11 hours to ...u simply can't rely on this for battery estimates)

3. Apple OS Battery Indicator isn't doing a good job either

4. Interestingly, battery is NEVER 100% charged and is max charged at 99% (as per ISTAT) and Coconut shows maximum charge of i think around 5000+k but NOT the complete 5257mah (The actual battery capacity)

I have been using this machine for 10 days now...

Overall,This 2013 11 inches Macbook Air HAS NOT given me 8 HOURS battery life (i know Apple said UPTO 9) if you use it like a business user with 12 emails flying out, 7-8 email accounts (mac-mail), multiple browsers (multiple tabs), music playing, bluetooth-wifi always ON of-course, MS Office apps always running (excel, word, ppt's), multiple mac softwares like ADIUM, evernote, dropbox etc.. (and lets include an exception that you never played a netflix while doing all this) and played 40 mins of regular flash video


And my worst fears are what will happen when i will install :

PARALLELS and VMWARE FUSION on to this machine for Windows 8 usage

If anyone of you 11 inch users have been able to achieve 8 hours with the usage i am talking about as above, please share....and 13 inch Fan-boys ==> Please DO NOT respond to this 11 inch specific thread with your 12+ hours of batter life as that doesn't make a dime difference to us 11'inch fanboys :)

Thanks Guys !
Click to expand...

Do a search before posting.There is an ENTIRE thread about MBA 11in battery life already.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1597394/
 
GGJstudios

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
johnjey said:
Just like a gazillion others, i am also looking for something that can give me a clear, correct and reliable "estimated battery left" information:

I know the Battery estimates DEPENDS on the usage. However, we still need a solid application that can do accurate estimates based on the usage (for example, if i am playing netflix HD --> the sure-shot battery killer --> then we need to know accurately the estimated time left and not have to see FOUR different times displayed by these 4 different applications)
Click to expand...
There is no such app that can give accurate estimates of time remaining. It is a constantly changing estimate, based on the workload on the system at any given point in time. This includes screen brightness and other settings, as well as all processes running. They are rough estimates and no app will make them more accurate.
johnjey said:
4. Interestingly, battery is NEVER 100% charged and is max charged at 99% (as per ISTAT) and Coconut shows maximum charge of i think around 5000+k but NOT the complete 5257mah (The actual battery capacity)
Click to expand...
It's normal that your battery may stop charging between 93-99%. For details, read the CHARGING section of the following link.

The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.
 
J

jasonbrent

macrumors newbie
Jul 28, 2007
5
0
Estimation is going to be a function of draw vs. capacity of the battery.

Draw is going to be a function of whatever is running on your machine at a given point in time.

You can see the current draw by running "ioreg -r -n AppleSmartBattery" in a terminal window (it might be -c and not -n, I forget).

My 13" has a ~7150mAh battery. Which means to get 12 hours out of it, the average draw must be <= 595mAh.

My current average usage is closer to 1mAh.. which means I'm not going to get closer to 12 hours until I make some changes in my workflow.

anyway.. food for thought.

-jbl
 
Booji

Booji

macrumors 6502a
Nov 17, 2011
790
516
Tokyo
I can get more than the 9 hours out of my 2013 11" i5/8/256 but I have to really baby it...back out of applications I'm not really needing at the moment, and keep it to 1-3 applications at one time - Safari with 1 or 2 tabs, a couple of MS Office applications and Evernote with a wifi connection.
 
N

NewbieCanada

macrumors 68030
Oct 9, 2007
2,574
37
johnjey said:
Overall,This 2013 11 inches Macbook Air HAS NOT given me 8 HOURS battery life (i know Apple said UPTO 9) if you use it like a business user with 12 emails flying out, 7-8 email accounts (mac-mail), multiple browsers (multiple tabs), music playing, bluetooth-wifi always ON of-course, MS Office apps always running (excel, word, ppt's), multiple mac softwares like ADIUM, evernote, dropbox etc.. (and lets include an exception that you never played a netflix while doing all this) and played 40 mins of regular flash video
Click to expand...

Apple's claims of up to 9 hours are for wireless web browsing. Period.

The purpose of long battery life is INSURANCE. So you can give that presentation in the conference room, or take it to a meeting or lunch without having to worry about it running out. It's not "charge it at home at night and never, ever have to plug it in at work." Even if it did give 8-9 hours under the conditions you list, what would you do if you have a long day?
 
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