Aluminum MAcbook Battery SUCKS!!!! [Archive]

Carnivor

Oct 28, 2008, 02:40 AM

After playting with this new 2.4 macbook for the last week, The battery is half of my blackbook 2.4

What's up apple, Do I have to Beta test yet Again????

NO wonder your stock is sinking.

If you take it literally he's been using his new 2.4 for the last week, and its half of his BB 2.4

Well a week of usage and having half of a BB2.4's capacity is rhuddy amazing imo, i don't get that much power!!!

vtxdig

Oct 28, 2008, 08:24 AM

My battery is awesome!! Man going from a 9 pound Gateway that got 1.5 hours to this getting 5 hours!!! Amazing battery life.

Skeletal-dæmon

Oct 28, 2008, 08:37 AM

I'm on a BlackBook that can run for 5-5.5 hours with wifi on and bluetooth off with the screen dimmed. Dad has an iBook that gets roughly 4.5-5 hours even after three years. I find it odd that a new battery would act so poorly without a fault. Get it replaced, and please at least try to remain inoffensive on here; this is MacRumors not 4chan.

thespyglass

Oct 28, 2008, 08:41 AM

Re. diagnostics - also wondering if this was through a Genius or using an app?

My battery is awesome!! Man going from a 9 pound Gateway that got 1.5 hours to this getting 5 hours!!! Amazing battery life.

Haha, similar story here. My 4.5kg Fujitsu Siemens can barely last an hour but this baby has given me five hours and still has twenty minutes left :)

cshale210

Oct 28, 2008, 10:18 AM

my 2.4 had bad battery at the beginning, but after a few charge cycles it is bounds better. I watched a 2 hour movie last night on full brightness, after watching i had 68% battery. Not bad at all. I am getting a solid 5 hours depending on applications/usage

synth3tik

Oct 28, 2008, 10:20 AM

I think the stock problem has more to do with the current economy then your battery.

gpmac

Oct 28, 2008, 10:38 AM

Artful Dodger

Oct 28, 2008, 10:53 AM

Can the ones that get around 5 hours post their battery capacity?

I only have a maximum 4242 mAh after 12 cycles according to coconutbattery
and only get 3:30 to 4:00 hours at one time i only got 2:30 hours?

Is my battery ok? i read some were that the battery capacity should be 5000 mAh?
I do hope that anyone using coconutbattery read about it's problems concerning processor drain and making some MB/MBPs run very hot due to heavy processor usage. That would in turn effect ones battery life from good to fair. My girlfriend is getting 5 hours on her new MB 2.0 that she's had since release day. Basic stuff running on hers and the screen turned down to half at most. I will try to find the posts about coconutbattery as there are more than the ones on www.versiontracker.com about it's issues. So far I haven't installed it on her new MB and I'm happy to wait for better feedback.

TFMTASAD

Oct 28, 2008, 11:17 AM

I usually get between 4 to 5 hrs of battery depending on use. I say it's pretty good considering the power of this thing.

thespyglass

Oct 28, 2008, 11:50 AM

Can the ones that get around 5 hours post their battery capacity?

I only have a maximum 4242 mAh after 12 cycles according to coconutbattery
and only get 3:30 to 4:00 hours at one time i only got 2:30 hours?

Is my battery ok? i read some were that the battery capacity should be 5000 mAh?

I was given 5hrs 20mins battery life last night when only running Firefox and Coconut now says:

Battery-Loadcycles: 2
Maximum Battery Capacity: 4269 mAh (which is slightly up from yesterday)
Original Battery Capacity: 4100 mAh

(I'd check how long it'd give me now but it's still charging.

5000 mAh? Wow, we're a bit off then! Is that after a few calibrations? Haven't calibrated mine yet.

I do hope that anyone using coconutbattery read about it's problems concerning processor drain and making some MB/MBPs run very hot due to heavy processor usage. That would in turn effect ones battery life from good to fair.

Thanks for the heads-up.

Snakel3ite

Oct 28, 2008, 12:44 PM

I didn't take any time reading your posts, so disregard this if it has been already said.

I was reading a dual review on gizmodo dot com, and they tested out the Alum MacBook, MacBook Pro (Better Battery Life), and MacBook Pro (High Performance), and the Alum MacBook scored high on both tests, DVD and MPEG4. So, I don't know your situation either, as I skimmed through-I did not see a second response from the thread starter. :( Shed some light, please.

Anyways, that is my two cents

:apple:Austin

Click here (http://gizmodo.com/5063492/macbook-and-macbook-pro-review) to read the review

paolo-

Oct 28, 2008, 12:51 PM

I got my 2.0 mb yesterday, I calibrated it and I'm charging it right now.
My battery isn't fully charged (hahaha one hour for the last 7%) CoconutBattery is saying that my current battery capacity is of 4277 mAh.

mashinhead

Oct 28, 2008, 12:57 PM

yea i can confirm that i'm getting great battery with mine. but i'm coming from a mbp, that is a year and half old and i think that battery is dying.

Snakel3ite

Oct 29, 2008, 02:00 PM

That review was testing out the new MBP. Um, oh the gizmodo site I linked to in the post above.. has some info on the new Windows OS.. and well I find it humorous that Windows is copying the Apple gesture feature! :D Gives us a reason to make fun of MS, right?

:apple:Austin

Lhk1617

Oct 29, 2008, 02:10 PM

My battery has been perfect on my 2.0 new macbook. The current battery capacity is 4160, hasn't been calibrated and i just used it for 4.5 to 5 hours web surfing, .avi watching and word processing. I haven't even calibrated yet! Take your MB to apple and ask what is up with the battery they will replace it if its faulty.

rugox

Oct 29, 2008, 02:28 PM

I get 6.5h battery life while word processing with brightness at 3/4. About 4.5-5 hours with web browsing at half brightness.

anish3232

Oct 29, 2008, 03:28 PM

MacsBestFriend

Oct 29, 2008, 04:35 PM

I think this person was just bsing us...

BayouBengal

Oct 29, 2008, 04:50 PM

For those getting good battery times, what does your battery meter next to the clock say when using the computer? I just charged my computer and now on battery it says 3 Hours 23 Mins. Is that normal?

Same here, I've run on battery down to about 50% or so but never timed it. I am curious as to if I'd get anything close to 5hrs. This is wifi on, bluetooth off, nothing in the super drive.

tiartrop

Oct 29, 2008, 06:37 PM

Last night I used it for web surfing, playing music on itunes, and chatting on IM, lasted for about 3.5 hours. Right now it's 3:46 at 95%.

I got about 4 hours when I first got it.

It's a significant downgrade from my white macbook, I could get up to 4.5 hours with that one.

I'm gonna calibrate it today, let's see if it'll make any difference.

anish3232

Oct 29, 2008, 08:15 PM

I will try to calibrate it, right now I am at 8% battery. It does not seem the computer lasted 3 hours and 30 mins. The computer was mostly in sleep since I originally posted about 5 hours ago. Wifi On Bluetooth Off

steve31

Oct 29, 2008, 09:05 PM

Same here. I got it and the first time the battery lasted 5 hrs but the second day I had it I picked up a Seagate 320 7200rpm HD and dropped it in. Then I got 3.5 hrs so I was unsure if the new HD needed a lot more juice or what the problem was. So today I took it out and dropped back in my "apple" HD and it made no difference. I had this problem with my MBA and it seemed to improve after a few charges.

budkid

Oct 29, 2008, 09:43 PM

I am spoiled with 4 hour battery life. My last computer was a Compaq which lasted 1 1/2 hours.

I love my Macbook.

Adamo

Oct 29, 2008, 09:48 PM

On my whitebook, if the counter is to be trusted.. I get about 3:30, which is more than acceptable to me considering how much of a drain the EEE generally was (well, one of them anyway, as the 701 is generally okay, but the battery itself isn't the largest on it).

PeterQC

Oct 29, 2008, 11:44 PM

I don't know for you all, but the CS3 Apps are really power hungry, even if they are running flawlessly, without any hiccup :S

jblock

Oct 30, 2008, 09:03 AM

I get anywhere between 3.5 to 5 hours depending on usage and screen brightness. I'm more concerned that my MB 2.4 came out of the box with 8 charge cycles on it already. I guess my battery was QC tested out of the batch it was in.

anish3232

Oct 30, 2008, 09:12 AM

Bryan Bowler

Oct 30, 2008, 09:21 AM

NO wonder your stock is sinking.

Apple has one of the highest consumer satisfaction ratings of any company.

There's a lot of reasons that AAPL's stock has gone down and complaints on battery life certainly isn't one.

kage207

Oct 30, 2008, 09:50 AM

NO wonder your stock is sinking.
Um... Didn't all stocks take a hit recently? :rolleyes:

EDIT:
Btw, all electronics the first time you use it, should be fully charged and then fully discharge, meaning don't turn it off or recharge it after full charge. Let the computer shut off due to no power left, just like the iPhone to maintain a quality performance with batteries. I do this with my iPhone and MacBook and I have no problems keeping it around 4 hours of usage of just safari on my Macbook and about 2 days without charging my iPhone(text all day and maybe talk 30mins a day on the phone).

Riseagainst540

Oct 30, 2008, 10:30 AM

My first run down I got 5.5 with wifi and bluetooth. Second I got 5 hours.

anish3232

Oct 30, 2008, 02:15 PM

What program can I use to check the health of the battery?

harisdmac

Oct 30, 2008, 02:20 PM

coconutBattery App :)

brettinlj

Oct 30, 2008, 04:56 PM

Check that your battery is not faulty. Mine ran for 5 hours on first run then barley got to 2.5 hours after. Had diagnostics done and it was found there was a fault so im waiting for my replacement :(

Anyone know what "diagnostics" he's talking about? My 2.0 MB has only been getting between 2-3 hours with normal usage, and I have been following the recommended charging cycles exactly. Will a Mac genius to a diagnostic, or he just talking about Coconut?

anish3232

Oct 31, 2008, 03:20 PM

nishishei

Oct 31, 2008, 04:55 PM

Apple has one of the highest consumer satisfaction ratings of any company.

There's a lot of reasons that AAPL's stock has gone down and complaints on battery life certainly isn't one.

That doesn't mean anything with a company that is so involved with branding. People can just be satisfied with having an Apple computer, doesn't mean it's actually any better. It's like a Rolex and a Seiko, both have high consumer satisfaction, but if we are talking specifically about timing accuracy, a typical Seiko beats every single Rolex hands down. People wear Rolexes for other reasons not related to absolute accuracy.

3-4 hours on the Macbook is nothing to call home about. Nearly all 13" PC laptops today get that kind of battery life. The people above comparing the current gen Macbook with their five year old 7-pound Dell Inspiron running on a Pentium 4 is not exactly fair.

nishishei

Oct 31, 2008, 04:59 PM

Still can not get more than 3 Hours 30 Mins out of my MacBook. My screen brightness is usually set to 50% or lower (mostly lower). Bluetooth off, WiFi on, Firefox and iCal only running. This is with normal web browsing. Coconut Battery says health is 100% and Max Capacity is 4236mah. So far the battery has been calibrated and 10 loads on the battery.

Should I try to get a new battery?

No. I think that's about as good as you're going to get. I believe the people here claiming 5 hours are full of it, or using 1 bar of brightness and have everything including Wifi turned off. The Macbook is running on a dedicated graphics chip now, if you're doing any kind of browsing, I doubt you will ever get more than 4 hours.

Ironic

Oct 31, 2008, 05:11 PM

Mine is 5+ hour :)

anish3232

Oct 31, 2008, 11:15 PM

Mine is 5+ hour :)

With what settings?

viccles

Nov 1, 2008, 12:43 AM

Anyone know what "diagnostics" he's talking about? My 2.0 MB has only been getting between 2-3 hours with normal usage, and I have been following the recommended charging cycles exactly. Will a Mac genius to a diagnostic, or he just talking about Coconut?

I'm a girl btw and I took it to an apple store to get checked :)

johny5

Nov 8, 2008, 04:52 AM

My battery is up and down although I am happy with it but when I am just web browsing I wouldn't have minded throttling the CPU right down to squeeze some more life out of the battery like my previous MB. Does anyone actually know what happened to the different performance settings in the energy/battery settings? I am guessing as the Alu MB has a different CPU maybe it cant be throttled the same as before?

anish3232

Nov 8, 2008, 09:46 AM

Wouldn't the NEW Processor and LED Screen make the battery life better?

Straight from Apple's site
"The LED-backlit display is more power efficient."

Huked on Fonick

Nov 9, 2008, 04:34 AM

I get about 5 hours of internet usage. Full battery capacity 4398mAh. Battery is awesome.

ubercool

Nov 9, 2008, 07:38 AM

VSMacOne

Nov 9, 2008, 09:13 AM

Battery life seems to be a lot better after calibration. I am at 70% and the meter says 3 Hours 30 mins. Thats at least 30% better then the reading I got yesterday.

EDIT

For some reason the meter is giving a bad reading. Now I am at 66% and is giving a 2 Hour 28 Mins. reading. Not sure what is up with this battery. Maybe a bad battery.

There is nothing wrong with your meter. Do this: unplug your computer, open up two or three different applications, turn your screen on full blast, and let them run... after about 5 minutes, see what your battery time is, and then turn your brightness down to under 50%, close down two of those applications, and you will DEFINITELY see the battery time increase.
With these batteries, the more applications you have open, the less time you have on the battery. As you close applications, the amount of CHARGE left in the battery does NOT change, but the time you have left to run on that charge changes!
I hope i didn't make this VERY complicated and wordy... :confused: :confused:

DeusInvictus7

Nov 9, 2008, 12:20 PM

I have never even gotten close to five hours, four is more like it and that is with everything (BT, Wi-Fi, screen dimmed all the way, keyboard BL turned off) off or down. It appears that my battery is actually degrading, because with full brightness I get about 2 hours of battery life, with everything turned off, about 3 hours.

I have a very hard time believing all you posters with five hours plus. For one, it's simply impossible to get the same battery life on the new MB as the original one as it has *less* rated capacity: 45-Wh battery vs. original MacBooks 55-Wh. :rolleyes:

actually this isnt true at all...well, at least according to apple...since most of the components are actually more power efficient, they use less power, even with the lower rated battery, so thats why you can supposedly still get the 5 hour claim

as for me, i actually get close to 6 hours with a couple tabs open in safari, brightness about half way...i guess i take good care of my battery... :D

Gen

Nov 9, 2008, 01:01 PM

t's like a Rolex and a Seiko, both have high consumer satisfaction, but if we are talking specifically about timing accuracy, a typical Seiko beats every single Rolex hands down. People wear Rolexes for other reasons not related to absolute accuracy.

What are you talking about? Sieko's are utter junk and should never be compared to Rolex's, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about when it comes to watches and I suggest you never make that analogy again.

Rob Philips

Nov 9, 2008, 01:31 PM

What are you talking about? Sieko's are utter junk and should never be compared to Rolex's, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about when it comes to watches and I suggest you never make that analogy again.

What? Oh yes right, let's stay on topic.

Anyway; my battery is just perfect, meets the 5 hour claim easily with brightness lowered and just some browsing / music playback.

Huked on Fonick

Nov 9, 2008, 01:58 PM

I timed it. 5 hours and 13 minutes with screen set one 25% brightness and keyboard turned off. I had a couple tab opens in Firefox. BT turned off, connected to internet through 802.11N. I guess i must just have a crazy good batter or something:rolleyes::cool::rolleyes::cool: I compulsively full cycle my battery. I got my computer on the 20th of October and i am showing 50 charge cycles with a max capacity of 4393mAh. My old 12 powerbook G4 had something like 2000 charges on it and still held a 85% charge because I am so compulsive about always full cycling it.

macalacka

Nov 10, 2008, 01:02 PM

DeusInvictus7

Nov 10, 2008, 01:11 PM

I am also somewhat OCD when it comes to charge/drain cycles. So far, a full charge gets me about 3:45 of run time ( claims the toolbar, not my watch )

I think I'm going to have to lower the screen brightness even more, as well as the lighted keys. For all of you 4-5 hour champs out there, do you have your "adjust to ambient light" set? Any tips aside from BT, Wifi, screen brightness to help the life of the battery? Does time machine affect the battery life?

i have the adjust to ambient light setting on...but i mean, it really just depends on what you are doing...i can get actually almost 6 hours with the brightness at 25%, keys at half, wifi on with a few tabs in firefox, BT off. if i have itunes playing it cuts it down to about 5.25 hours...

and i would think that time machine does affect battery, at least when its running...so you might want to look into that.

mcdj

Nov 10, 2008, 01:41 PM

What are you talking about? Sieko's are utter junk and should never be compared to Rolex's, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about when it comes to watches and I suggest you never make that analogy again.

get a clue. (http://www.seiyajapan.com/c=mSFHXx2EyQbflgt0l535QA3ug/category/1_grand_seiko/)

then read this. (http://www.timezone.com/library/horologium/horologium0036)

anish3232

Nov 10, 2008, 06:33 PM

For those getting 5+ hours out of the battery

Does the battery meter ever read (5:XX) remaining?

Just unpluged my computer, Firefox is the only app running, 25% brightness, Bluetooth off and the meter reads (4:05)

No where near 5 hours.

sutherlandan

Nov 10, 2008, 06:52 PM

Just unplugged, bluetooth off, wifi off, firefox open with 2 tabs, and brightness at 25%:
Meter is reading 6 hours 30 minutes...
Whether or not i'll actually get 6.5 hours, I'm not sure.

DeusInvictus7

Nov 10, 2008, 07:19 PM

Just unplugged, bluetooth off, wifi off, firefox open with 2 tabs, and brightness at 25%:
Meter is reading 6 hours 30 minutes...
Whether or not i'll actually get 6.5 hours, I'm not sure.

lol what im wondering is why you have wifi off but you have firefox open with two tabs... :p

and to the person who asked if the reading is ever above 5 hours...for me yes...when i just unplug, it shows around 5:40, and i have actually been getting around that. right now my battery is at 75% 4 Hours left, brightness at half, wifi on, two tabs open in firefox.

anish3232

Nov 10, 2008, 09:03 PM

My battery must be a bad one then. I can not get my reading past 4 hours and some change. However Coconut battery says its in good health.

Vulcan

Nov 10, 2008, 09:46 PM

My battery must be a bad one then. I can not get my reading past 4 hours and some change. However Coconut battery says its in good health.

Take it to the Genius Bar for a replacement in that case. I find it sad these MacBooks use a worse battery than the old ones, they simply use less power resulting in the same times. We could be getting 6-7 hours out of these machines.

DeusInvictus7

Nov 10, 2008, 09:50 PM

Take it to the Genius Bar for a replacement in that case. I find it sad these MacBooks use a worse battery than the old ones, they simply use less power resulting in the same times. We could be getting 6-7 hours out of these machines.

yeah i find that stupid too...and the battery is overall bigger i think too...might be thinner, but whatever, it should have the same power rating as the older ones...

dwsolberg

Nov 10, 2008, 10:11 PM

One thing that can really eat up battery life is Flash. Since I turned Flash off, I get at least an extra hour of battery life.

If I'm running Firefox in the background with Flash on, Firefox can use about 80% of a processor. With Flash off on the same websites, it uses about 0.1 % of a processor. That makes a big difference in battery life.

From what I can tell, the new MacBooks have better processor power management and a smaller capacity battery. These changes probably break even normally, but when the processor is at high use, it's going to eat away at the smaller battery faster.

Twilight Elk

Nov 10, 2008, 10:43 PM

It has been 48 hours since I got my MacBook and it has gone through four battery cycles already. The battery is pretty bad in my opinion, but I think I will see how far it can go throughout the next week.

If the problems persists then I will surely call a Genius to get it fixed. In the mean time, I downloaded coconutBattery and it seems to be a decent program to use.

Ya, this is my first Mac as well as my first laptop so I will be needing help from the community :)

Gen

Nov 11, 2008, 07:11 PM

get a clue. (http://www.seiyajapan.com/c=mSFHXx2EyQbflgt0l535QA3ug/category/1_grand_seiko/)

then read this. (http://www.timezone.com/library/horologium/horologium0036)

Do you really want to go down that route? I've been working in jewelry for the past 5 years and my watch inventory exceeds $250,000 - instead of cluttering this thread I'll continue this conversation via PM.

anish3232

Nov 11, 2008, 08:38 PM

Found the problem, my desktop background was set to change every 10 seconds or so. This was killing battery due to the graphics card working harder. Now I am happy with the battery life. I am at 93% with (5:59) left. What a difference.

Jpoon

Nov 11, 2008, 10:51 PM

get a clue. (http://www.seiyajapan.com/c=mSFHXx2EyQbflgt0l535QA3ug/category/1_grand_seiko/)

then read this. (http://www.timezone.com/library/horologium/horologium0036)

+1 hahhahahh..... good one

Chase R

Nov 12, 2008, 12:37 AM

Just unplugged my computer from the charger and it said I had 7:20 of battery life! It stayed like that for about one minute and now it says I have 6:01 of battery left... not too bad. I doubt it will actually last that long though. The battery only has 10 cycles too. System Profiler says that full charge capacity is 4235mAh, is that good? This is with Safari and Mail open, keyboard backlight off, and the screen at 2 clicks from being all the way dim.

Farkum

Nov 12, 2008, 12:45 AM

I have had and still have a lot of laptops. Just got an aluminum macbook for my everyday computer and have no issues with battery life. The only time its low is when I'm playing half life 2 in windows... needless to say I expected it to be low during those times and it still lasts over an hour. In everyday use I'm getting 3.5 to 4 hours.

nweash

Dec 28, 2008, 07:57 PM

i can honestly say i have the same problem as original poster..with my black 2.4 macbook at half brightness i got 4 hours easy. with my new aluminum 2.4 at miminum brightness on screen and keys im lucky to get 3 hours...some people get 5 hours?? holy cow im jealous maybe my battery is defective i could never get that simply by browsing only

Solemony

Dec 28, 2008, 10:01 PM

Mine works fine. It gave me up to 5 hours of battery life when I was doing the calibration on my MB when I first got it...and it works even fine as of right now..:D

acfusion29

Dec 28, 2008, 10:22 PM

lol what im wondering is why you have wifi off but you have firefox open with two tabs... :p

and to the person who asked if the reading is ever above 5 hours...for me yes...when i just unplug, it shows around 5:40, and i have actually been getting around that. right now my battery is at 75% 4 Hours left, brightness at half, wifi on, two tabs open in firefox.

Ethernet still exists... no? ;)

DeusInvictus7

Dec 28, 2008, 10:30 PM

Ethernet still exists... no? ;)

TRUE! OMG, how did I forget about that, shows how much I care for ethernet at this point.

However, I do still use it for transferring files between my macbook and my sister's...so I guess there are still some uses for it :D

RobertD63

Dec 29, 2008, 12:17 AM

The pictures explain it all

ikermalli

Dec 29, 2008, 01:17 AM

I get 5 hrs + on my whitebook

petermcphee

Dec 29, 2008, 01:41 PM

4.5 - 5 hours on my 2.4 aluminum MacBook.

The Samurai

Dec 29, 2008, 01:57 PM

I get around 4 hours +... again, depending on what features im using i.e. bluetooth and wireless (eat up a lot of battery).

Mines is all good.

Jiten

Dec 29, 2008, 04:10 PM

The pictures explain it all

The display is not exactly accurate. I get a 5 hour reading on my Macbook Pro as well but it only last around 3 hours when I actually let the battery run down. I suggest you try to run your battery down and time it.

ensgaard

Jan 8, 2009, 01:15 AM

to all mac gurus out there,

i had been using macbook aluminum 2.4 for about 2 weeks now...i havent quite really time the battery life at first but recently i realize that my battery is giving me less n less time... right after fully charged, unplug the power cable, n it says 2:23 hrs time left...just running 1 x safari, 1 x firefox, YM n msn...and that's it...battery defect??

J&JPolangin

Jan 8, 2009, 01:47 AM

...what happened to the OP:confused::D

goldfronts

Jan 8, 2009, 01:48 AM

Did you turn your screen's brightness down at all?

ensgaard

Jan 8, 2009, 02:22 AM

sorry...what's an OP??

screen brightness at 50%...does this really effect that much?? if in my case..i set it to 100% bright my batt will be 1 hrs??

mattcube64

Jan 8, 2009, 02:37 AM

sorry...what's an OP??

screen brightness at 50%...does this really effect that much?? if in my case..i set it to 100% bright my batt will be 1 hrs??

OP = Original Poster / Thread Starter

tubbymac

Jan 8, 2009, 02:40 AM

sorry...what's an OP??

OP stands for Original Poster. Shorthand for referring to the first post.

Anyhow your battery seems kinda low. I get a reading of about 5 hours, sometimes as high as 6.5 hours on a full charge from the battery meter. Whether that's accurate or not is up for debate but that's what OSX says.

Go to your apple menu, select About This Mac / More Info / Power. Copy and paste your battery info like me here and I'll see if there's anything abnormal. Don't paste your serial number of the battery, just paste the same info like from my battery here:

Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 4124
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4146
Health Information:
Cycle count: 49
Condition: Good
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 12521

mckvakk

Jan 8, 2009, 03:40 AM

Deleteme

ensgaard

Jan 8, 2009, 03:52 AM

As attached...i'm going to mac service soon..

01jamcon

Jan 8, 2009, 04:10 AM

As attached...i'm going to mac service soon..

Uhm, what for? Your battery info looks completely normal.

tubbymac

Jan 8, 2009, 04:51 AM

As attached...i'm going to mac service soon..

Your battery looks normal and healthy from those numbers. That means your low battery life is just due to programs running that are sucking out approximately 2.6 times more power than compared with my Macbook, according to my rough calculations.

The amperage number is the important number for you. With Safari and System Profiler running on this web page my amperage is at about -650 mA which OSX reports correctly as 6.2 hours of battery life.

Yours would be around -1690 mA to give only 2.4 hours. Load up Activity Monitor, look for programs that have a CPU usage number above zero, and start shutting those down. As you shut things down your amperage would start getting closer to -650 mA. The closer you get to that number the closer you'll get to 6 hours of battery life like my machine.

It'll involve a bit of work on your end but you'll end up with much better battery life as a result. As you shut stuff down you need to go through the whole About This Mac / More Info / Power thing to get an updated amperage number. You can't just leave the window open as it doesn't update itself.

The reason your amperage number is positive in your screenshot is because it's plugged in and charging. Make sure to pull out the plug when you try this and the numbers will go negative.

This is the same type of stuff the Apple genius is going to do when you bring in your machine in the back of the store. Do it yourself and you could save yourself a trip.

cogsinister

Jan 8, 2009, 05:23 AM

92% 4.54 one notch below half brightness and k/b lighting on one notch.

ensgaard

Jan 8, 2009, 06:42 AM

Sifus....

There's only firefox, safari n activity monitor showing CPU usage of more than 0... there rest are indeed 0....

tubbymac

Jan 8, 2009, 08:35 AM

There's only firefox, safari n activity monitor showing CPU usage of more than 0... there rest are indeed 0....

If your battery meter is still saying about 2.5 hours on a full charge, your amperage will be about -1700 mA. I'm guessing Firefox somehow got messed up on your system and is sucking the battery life. Try shutting Firefox down for a while and see if your amperage gets closer to -650 mA and if your battery life reading goes up.

ensgaard

Jan 9, 2009, 12:47 AM

Thanks all for the info...as of today my mac is running without a battery & awaiting replacement by monday or tuesday...
FYI, at the mac service centre, my battery shows 2.30 hrs @ 97% of charge right after startup...nothing was yet opened that time....
I'll let u know the performance of this new battery soon...cheers...

tubbymac

Jan 9, 2009, 01:23 AM

FYI, at the mac service centre, my battery shows 2.30 hrs @ 97% of charge right after startup...nothing was yet opened that time....

Yeah 2.3 hours at a full charge with nothing running is a different matter. Something is definitely messed up in that case. Hope everything goes well when you get the new battery. It should last twice as long.

ensgaard

Jan 13, 2009, 12:47 PM

Qinetic

Jan 13, 2009, 01:49 PM

How is Apple stock dropping if their sales are supposedly 3x faster than Microsoft PC sales? :rolleyes:

tubbymac

Jan 13, 2009, 03:07 PM

tubbymac,

thanks for all the infos...just got my new battery today & i'm quite happy with time shown right at startup after full charge...& my system profiler shows around -860mA with safari n firefox running...hopefully these will lasts as long as forever....hahhahah

No problem, looks like your machine is perfect now. -860mA is exactly what'd I'd expect to see with safari and firefox running at the same time. 7 hours is also the same time I get when my machine first starts up from a full charge as well since the power draw is extremely low at that point. Glad everything worked out for you!

yousoldtheworld

Jan 14, 2009, 05:48 PM

I get about 5.5 hours with the keyboard backlight off and the screen at 50%, running Safari, wifi, iChat, and mail. This is after calibrating...at first, I got only about 3.5 hours.

If I add iTunes and/or Firefox into the mix, I get about 4 hours.

smactley

Jan 14, 2009, 06:10 PM

tubbymac,

thanks for all the infos...just got my new battery today & i'm quite happy with time shown right at startup after full charge...& my system profiler shows around -860mA with safari n firefox running...hopefully these will lasts as long as forever....hahhahah

Did you jsut bring it to the apple store? Did they give you any hassle?

Mine has gotten worse and worse and I"m wondering if I should bring it back or not :(

aznguyen316

Jan 14, 2009, 07:11 PM

How come the new macs seem to have a smaller battery @ 4200 mAh? I have a sept. 2007 macbook and the battery on this is a 5000mAh one. Is this much of a big deal? Just curious. I get around maybe 4 hours on it if I don't do any video watching. Video kills it as my fan just goes on and goes crazy at 6200RPM lol.. stupid GMA 950

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3421/3198199312_fb0b3a75d9_o.png

ensgaard

Jan 15, 2009, 03:35 AM

Did you jsut bring it to the apple store? Did they give you any hassle?

Mine has gotten worse and worse and I"m wondering if I should bring it back or not :(

Yup...i just bring it over to the apple service centre & told them about the problem...oh i did call before that n they told me to drop by the shop for them to check...base on the guy there, he said mine was the first with battery problem...hahahah..

Ok...i read this here n there even in apple did suggest the best practice when dealing with battery life....
how do u guys use ur machine?? plugin most of the time?? let say 80% plug in n sometimes leave it run with battery for couple of hours?? or totally using battery powered right after full charge & leave it to 5% before recharging?? i have a friend of mine once told me that it's ok to leave ur charger on after full charged since the MAC is so brilliant & it will bypass the battery not to overload it?? is this true??

MattyK

Jan 15, 2009, 04:46 AM

As we say here on Mac Rumors, Pics or it never happened... :)

VSMacOne

Jan 15, 2009, 08:18 AM

Yup...i just bring it over to the apple service centre & told them about the problem...oh i did call before that n they told me to drop by the shop for them to check...base on the guy there, he said mine was the first with battery problem...hahahah..

Ok...i read this here n there even in apple did suggest the best practice when dealing with battery life....
how do u guys use ur machine?? plugin most of the time?? let say 80% plug in n sometimes leave it run with battery for couple of hours?? or totally using battery powered right after full charge & leave it to 5% before recharging?? i have a friend of mine once told me that it's ok to leave ur charger on after full charged since the MAC is so brilliant & it will bypass the battery not to overload it?? is this true??

let say 80% plug in n sometimes leave it run with battery for couple of hours?? -- definitely something like this one. That's what Apple recommends.

i have a friend of mine once told me that it's ok to leave ur charger on after full charged -- that is correct. it won't hurt the battery, as long as it gets a couple of hours of "workout" here and there..

How come the new macs seem to have a smaller battery @ 4200 mAh? I have a sept. 2007 macbook and the battery on this is a 5000mAh one. Is this much of a big deal? Just curious. I get around maybe 4 hours on it if I don't do any video watching. Video kills it as my fan just goes on and goes crazy at 6200RPM lol.. stupid GMA 950

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3421/3198199312_fb0b3a75d9_o.png

The Unibody has a smaller battery than the prev gen MB. But I think the gains in efficiency (CPU, LCD Display, etc.) make up for that difference and allow for a battery life pretty comparable to the older MB.

Nik73

Jan 15, 2009, 08:51 AM

let say 80% plug in n sometimes leave it run with battery for couple of hours?? -- definitely something like this one. That's what Apple recommends.

i have a friend of mine once told me that it's ok to leave ur charger on after full charged -- that is correct. it won't hurt the battery, as long as it gets a couple of hours of "workout" here and there..

Just curious VS, but someone told me it was the opposite. Leaving it plugged in all the time does damage the battery. Personally I didn't believe it but have found it seems to be true with my Dell. I used mine plugged in a lot but also use it on battery for, on average, an hour a day. But often more. When new, I got about 3hrs from the battery but now I'm lucky if I get 1!!! It's about 2 1/2 years old. Could just be a crap battery.

Just wondering as I'll be getting a new MB and don't want the same thing to happen with that battery.

VSMacOne

Jan 15, 2009, 09:50 AM

Just curious VS, but someone told me it was the opposite. Leaving it plugged in all the time does damage the battery. Personally I didn't believe it but have found it seems to be true with my Dell. I used mine plugged in a lot but also use it on battery for, on average, an hour a day. But often more. When new, I got about 3hrs from the battery but now I'm lucky if I get 1!!! It's about 2 1/2 years old. Could just be a crap battery.

Just wondering as I'll be getting a new MB and don't want the same thing to happen with that battery.

http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

That's what I understand from reading the instructions in the link above. Also, I've been doing this with my MB bought in November, and so far my battery hasn't once shown dropped health, it's still at 100% health. Now my friend who bought his a couple of weeks before me, has shown a drop in battery health, and he's let his die down close to zero before plugging back in, and unplugging as soon as the battery hit 100% charge.
Mine is plugged in at the office all day long, and when i get home at night I use it on battery for a little bit, and then plug it back in and use it plugged.. This way I make sure the battery gets a little bit of "practice" and at the same time I'm not using up a lot of cycles (seeing how batteries are only guaranteed an average of 300 cycles or so). Oh and make sure you Calibrate about once a month or so (have you ever done this with your Dell? - i know i never did it with my Toshiba Satellite and had crappy battery life)

Nik73

Jan 15, 2009, 03:57 PM

Thanks for that VS. Yeah I regularly calibrate the battery, especially recently as it's so poor now. I think I've just not been using on battery enough as it does say on that page that they don't recommend it being plugged in all the time. Even though it was getting used on battery a lot I think it was getting used a LOT more plugged in. So percentage wise battery use was reeeeeally low.

VPrime

Jan 15, 2009, 09:50 PM

I just got my macbook yesterday... Currently the macbook has been going on 5hr and 4 minutes on a full charge... according to istat i have 1 min battery life left. I have been just surfing the net with it all day, and playing with the isight cam..

edit:haha my battery died right when I clicked the submit post button.

ensgaard

Jan 16, 2009, 12:53 AM

[QUOTE=VSMacOne;6939373]let say 80% plug in n sometimes leave it run with battery for couple of hours?? -- definitely something like this one. That's what Apple recommends.

i have a friend of mine once told me that it's ok to leave ur charger on after full charged -- that is correct. it won't hurt the battery, as long as it gets a couple of hours of "workout" here and there..

Thanks for the info VS....

aznguyen316

Jan 16, 2009, 03:25 PM

The Unibody has a smaller battery than the prev gen MB. But I think the gains in efficiency (CPU, LCD Display, etc.) make up for that difference and allow for a battery life pretty comparable to the older MB.

Thank you

itsALIVE

Jan 19, 2009, 03:42 AM

i get about 3 to 4 hours on mine but i dont think i have ever been able to get 5 or 6.

spaceballl

Jan 19, 2009, 12:50 PM

talk about jumping the gun

ZDDP1273

Jan 20, 2009, 01:10 AM

I can get a little bit over 4 hours with mine. Maybe you just have a battery issue.

jpvaz

Jan 20, 2009, 03:56 AM

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3421/3198199312_fb0b3a75d9_o.png

Pffff... you call that a good battery ?!?

http://gallery.me.com/jpmvaz/100185/Bat%2004/web.png?ver=12323879170001

aznguyen316

Feb 3, 2009, 09:11 AM

been trying to calculate or figure out my power consumption for best battery life. I calibrated the battery a couple days ago and at full charge it calculates to be 4:08 w/ brightness at half and safari + mail + finder + sys profiler open. The amperage is -974. I'm trying to figure out if this amperage is correct? Seems a bit high just for those programs open =/ Either way I feel like I should be getting better battery life. The batt only has 8 charge cycles on it. Could this be why? activity monitor shows only safari using the most CPU @ 8-10. Anyway, thoughts would be great.

Patriks7

Feb 3, 2009, 02:10 PM

I am spoiled with 4 hour battery life. My last computer was a Compaq which lasted 1 1/2 hours.

I love my Macbook.

Exactly my thought. My Acer before my MacBook hardly got 1 hour, and you guys are complaining about 3.5 hours :rolleyes:

andrewag

Feb 3, 2009, 03:41 PM

I bought the 2.4 a few days back and haven't done it yet and it's at 4229mAh.

My partner never calibrated his Mid 2007 macbook and the battery is @ 98% of it's original capacity according to coconut battery. He uses it for a few hours and returns it to charge where it sits for most of the time.

My rev a black Macbook battery is left at around 450mAh just under 3 years old. I regularly ran it down and calibrated it. Even before that I had a PowerBook G4 with a replaced batter (recalls etc) that I plugged in when I got to work, used for a few hours on battery and plugged in at home and the battery stayed in top condition.

I think I will be doing the keep in power most of the time advice like the scenario on Apple's website.

riceboidavid

Feb 4, 2009, 01:31 AM

Sesshi

Feb 4, 2009, 01:58 AM

My battery is awesome!! Man going from a 9 pound Gateway that got 1.5 hours to this getting 5 hours!!! Amazing battery life.

Which is a bit like saying "My Panda is so much better than my previous tank".

The Macbook / Air are the worst-enduring compact / ultralight notebooks I have/had of late. It's interesting that with most of my Vista notebooks I can eke out more than the advertised life if I kick in all the power saving features. With Apple, I can never approach the quoted runtime despite doing the same.

Which brings me to a question: How much extra runtime do you guys think I might squeeze out if I replaced the drive with an SSD? I find it an occasional hassle with the need to carry 3 additional batteries to match the runtime of my Sony + spare battery (not to mention the huge additional weight).

peepboon

Feb 4, 2009, 06:49 AM

Mine is great, i tend to have the wireless off/dimmed screen, etc etc

bobbyroller

Feb 4, 2009, 06:59 AM

I think the stock problem has more to do with the current economy then your battery.

I second that!:)

DeusInvictus7

Feb 4, 2009, 08:30 AM

My battery sucks! I was wondering if I should take it in?

Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 2646
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4054
Health Information:
Cycle count: 73
Condition: Good
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -1192
Voltage (mV): 11578

73 Cycles in 4 months...O Lordy

To be honest, you're battery seems perfectly fine. It will hover around the 99%-100% mark for a while.

Just yesterday I was at 4068 (99%) for my max charge, and today I'm at 4143.

I'm at 67 cycles, 4 months old.

riceboidavid

Feb 4, 2009, 08:48 AM

Yeah, I finally found the reason why my battery always ran out so quickly today. I had a program running that drastically drained the battery. But now that I don't run it, my numbers are fine. 3-4 Hrs with average use

Stachelsk

Feb 4, 2009, 08:50 AM

Am I imagining things, or do the new Alu MacBooks have significantly less charge than do the old plastic White/Black MacBooks?

My White MacBook is exactly a year old... still have 100% health, 5368mAh... battery usually lasts at least 6 hours on a light load.

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/3383/batterystatus20409rs4.png

Stachelsk

Feb 4, 2009, 08:52 AM

My battery sucks! I was wondering if I should take it in?

Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 2646
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4054
Health Information:
Cycle count: 73
Condition: Good
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -1192
Voltage (mV): 11578

73 Cycles in 4 months...O Lordy

Your battery qualifies for a free replacement at the Apple Store... if a battery drops below 70% health in less than 1 year or 300 charges (whichever comes first), bring it in and complain and they'll give you a brand new one for free.

Stachelsk

Feb 4, 2009, 09:16 AM

Which brings me to a question: How much extra runtime do you guys think I might squeeze out if I replaced the drive with an SSD? I find it an occasional hassle with the need to carry 3 additional batteries to match the runtime of my Sony + spare battery (not to mention the huge additional weight).

tomshardware.com did a test -- Conventional HDD vs SSD. They got maybe a few minutes extra with the SSDs. A good laptop HDD is pretty efficient when it comes to power. SSDs just aren't worth it yet IMO.

aznguyen316

Feb 4, 2009, 09:47 AM

Your battery qualifies for a free replacement at the Apple Store... if a battery drops below 70% health in less than 1 year or 300 charges (whichever comes first), bring it in and complain and they'll give you a brand new one for free.

k I'm confused, that's just his current battery charge at 63%, his battery total health is 99%. I'm reading that correctly right?

Sesshi

Feb 4, 2009, 10:01 AM

tomshardware.com did a test -- Conventional HDD vs SSD. They got maybe a few minutes extra with the SSDs. A good laptop HDD is pretty efficient when it comes to power. SSDs just aren't worth it yet IMO.

I figured as much - but only minutes? That's a bummer.

Stachelsk

Feb 4, 2009, 12:49 PM

k I'm confused, that's just his current battery charge at 63%, his battery total health is 99%. I'm reading that correctly right?

My bad, I thought he was complaining about how his battery health was low.

I figured as much - but only minutes? That's a bummer.

Yep, read it for yourself: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-hdd-battery,1955.html

I forgot about it, because it's a little old, but they report that SSDs are worse for your battery life. However, I'd be willing to bet that they didn't take into account for the fact that the SSD was loading more data to begin with.

Sesshi

Feb 4, 2009, 12:58 PM

I'm inclined to say that's old data. I'd like to hear results with the current X25M's etc if anyone has that info.

Stachelsk

Feb 4, 2009, 01:07 PM

I'm inclined to say that's old data. I'd like to hear results with the current X25M's etc if anyone has that info.

I have that too... tomshardware. Intel's offerings aren't any better.

http://media.bestofmicro.com/5/S/177760/original/image008.png

The best offering in the older article bests Intel's SSD in terms of power consumption.

I just ended up buying the WD Scorpio 500GB... it has 2.6W Load / 0.8W Idle. Granted, Intel's offerings are better in terms of power consumption. In sequential reads and writes with big blocks, I darn near come close to the SSD. I just can't justify buying a flash drive that's hundreds of dollars, when you can get a harddrive over 6x it's size for a 1/6 of the cost.

pellets007

Feb 4, 2009, 01:51 PM

Wow, the more I read, the more I want a MacBook. I can only get 30 minutes on my two and a half year old HP dv6000.:o

Sesshi

Feb 4, 2009, 01:55 PM

Thanks for that link. Even if we assume that the 190Gb version of the X25-M I was looking at is about the same as the 80Gb, it's not a huge boost. Oh well, it was worth a consideration - back to battery lugging for me for the times I want worthwhile runtime.

Wow, the more I read, the more I want a MacBook. I can only get 30 minutes on my two and a half year old HP dv6000.:o

A Sony Z with an extended battery will make the Macbook seem like a very bad joke in those terms. Although I do have to admit that the aluMB is less of a mishmash in terms of styling.

ubercool

Feb 4, 2009, 01:59 PM

My battery life continues to suck. Just over two hours, typically 2:12 minutes is all I get (browsing, Pages, Mail, Quark, and about five other programs). Bought a new one in London. Same story, abominable. My old MacBook still gets over three hours easy. And it fully charges in two hours, one hour less than this POS. :mad:

Stachelsk

Feb 4, 2009, 02:03 PM

Yeah, I can't quite figure out why Apple decided to go from ~5400mAh to ~4200mAh. That's a 23% decrease in battery capacity. The new Alu MBs aren't that much lighter, are they?

gixxerredliner

Feb 4, 2009, 02:07 PM

riceboidavid

Feb 4, 2009, 02:07 PM

Browsing/Downloading with Safari (or I guess any network using client) really tears away at the battery life. I lose a good hour+ from battery life. If I don't use the internet or excessive programs, I get about 4-4.5hrs

Sesshi

Feb 4, 2009, 02:15 PM

Yeah, I can't quite figure out why Apple decided to go from ~5400mAh to ~4200mAh. That's a 23% decrease in battery capacity. The new Alu MBs aren't that much lighter, are they?

The new Alu MB's are considerably lighter - 300grams, which is the weight of a battery. The plastic Macbook chassis wasn't stunningly lightweight, which has far more successfully masked the necessarily relative weight gain on moving to the unibody chassis - but they still had to drop the cell size in order to fit everything in and make sure the machine doesn't bend like paper.

RE: the charging, it's the new chemistry and unavoidable. Runtime: I'd suggest playing with the power settings and reducing the screen brightness - I get about 3.5 real hours at the most typically doing stuff that actually needs to be done while configuring the machine to eke as much as reasonably possible, not fitting what I do around claiming the best battery life :rolleyes:

However on the Windows side the 1.5Kg Z I mentioned earlier aside, the latest of my 1.8Kg 2.5Ghz Penryn Sony SZ's gets almost 6 hours out of a charge on power saving modes with wireless on. Heck, I get almost 4 hours even with the built-in 3G modem on. With an extended (2Kg all-up weight - same as the MB) battery I get 1.5 times that. And this is from a machine getting towards a year old.

I'm not getting why these guys their discrete-GPU notebooks with no power saving facilities think the MB is some miracle worker. It's removable battery life is pretty crap, like all Apples of late that I've been able to directly compare with - But the aluMB happens to be my least worst compromise at the moment.

pellets007

Feb 4, 2009, 02:41 PM

Thanks for that link. Even if we assume that the 190Gb version of the X25-M I was looking at is about the same as the 80Gb, it's not a huge boost. Oh well, it was worth a consideration - back to battery lugging for me for the times I want worthwhile runtime.

A Sony Z with an extended battery will make the Macbook seem like a very bad joke in those terms. Although I do have to admit that the aluMB is less of a mishmash in terms of styling.Battery life is the least of my worries to be honest. When I present, maybe every two weeks, I just need something powerful enough to display my presentation (the Pentium III computer that I'm supplied with won't). Anytime else, I'm just constantly moving between the floors of my house, but I always bring the power cord anyhow. But, this battery is crap now and I have a vendetta against Windows ever since I bought this laptop, and a desktop from Dell (which didn't work). If it was a fault with Windows or the manufacturers, it doesn't matter to me, I just won't go back. But it is nice to know that when I do require a long battery life that I have plenty of options. Thanks!:D

Sesshi

Feb 4, 2009, 02:56 PM

I see that a lot. When many are actually given a choice they're too cheap/uninformed/etc to buy anything but crap. When they buy a Mac they have to buy a half-decent machine due to the stepping of the models offered - ergo, many are happier. I get it. I don't however see how that in itself is 'better'. Maybe it's just me.

Farkum

Feb 5, 2009, 02:25 AM

hmmm.... don't know if this is good or not but I have no problem running my laptop anywhere from 3 to 5 hours depending on what I am doing. Coming back to MN from FL last month I played movies the whole plane ride and had power to spare.

budkid

Feb 5, 2009, 03:33 AM

I have to disagree with the heading....

I get 4+ hours on my macbook. Just turn down your brightness!!!

Zuwxiv

Feb 5, 2009, 06:38 AM

Just for comparison, here's my MacBook, Santa Rosa Chipset, bought somewhere around September 2007.

One day I forgot to charge it, and had to go through my classes taking notes on a suicidally low charge. By turning off wifi, turning off the backlit screen when not using it, etc. I managed to get the equivalent of eight hours of battery life - I was very, very impressed by this. I'm kind of worried - my macbook has developed chips on the outside edges - and I hope that when I eventually replace this laptop, I'll get something with just as good battery life.

Still, the most graphically challenging things I do to my laptop are HD video, Battlefield 1942, and Rome: Total War - all of which the X3100 is more than capable of, even though the 9400M will certainly do a better job.

Even my gaming desktop (2 years old) uses an 8600GTS - and that's perfectly able to handle most games.

democrat2theend

Feb 7, 2009, 02:32 PM

After playting with this new 2.4 macbook for the last week, The battery is half of my blackbook 2.4

What's up apple, Do I have to Beta test yet Again????

NO wonder your stock is sinking.

I'm a little disappointed with the battery life on my new 2.4 ghz MacBook as well. I got it about a month and a half ago and it's fast and gorgeous and powerful and perfect in just about every way, but the battery does not last as long as my old iBook G4, even when I turn off bluetooth (which my old laptop did not have). Granted, it has a faster hard drive, a slightly bigger screen, and a more powerful processor, so I guess I should have expected that, but the guy in the store said the battery would last longer than the old laptop because the technology has improved. Plus, the MacBook's battery is brand new, compared to the old iBook with a 2 or 3 year old battery. So I'm a little disappointed about the battery life on the new MacBook, even though I love everything else about it. It makes me glad I didn't go with the MacBook Pro, because the battery life on those are probably even worse (the Apple site says 4.5 hours for the 15" Pro, compared to 5 hours for the regular MacBook. Of course, neither computer gets that much battery in reality).

Sesshi

Feb 7, 2009, 03:05 PM

I have to disagree with the heading....

I get 4+ hours on my macbook. Just turn down your brightness!!!

If I turned down the brightness any more the backlight would turn off. And I get ~3.5 hours. I'm used to it - the Air is pathetic too, but at least I can swap the batteries on this thing (one of the reasons my UBMB's replaced the Airs).

Jayomat

Feb 7, 2009, 05:51 PM

I cannot complain....;)

asphyxiafeeling

Feb 7, 2009, 07:07 PM

After playting with this new 2.4 macbook for the last week, The battery is half of my blackbook 2.4

What's up apple, Do I have to Beta test yet Again????

NO wonder your stock is sinking.

i'm sure countless people have already eviscerated this post, but i must concur as well!

i have the 2.0 alu macbook and my battery life is FANTASTIC! i can get up to 6.5 hours of typing, around 3-4 hours of web surfing. of course the battery is only an hour or two when gaming / some intensive application, but that is EXPECTED.

Sesshi

Feb 7, 2009, 07:10 PM

i'm sure countless people have already eviscerated this post, but i must concur as well!

i have the 2.0 alu macbook and my battery life is FANTASTIC! i can get up to 6.5 hours of typing, around 3-4 hours of web surfing. of course the battery is only an hour or two when gaming / some intensive application, but that is EXPECTED.

I get ~9 hours of web surfing - no, scratch that, constant VPN and all manner of Internet-related stuff - on a 2.5 Sony SZ with the extended battery. Total weight = same as Macbook. Better screen. Arguably better keyboard. Unarguably better connectivity. And obsolete as far as Sony's concerned. Just a FYI.

Chundles

Feb 7, 2009, 07:27 PM

NXTMIKE

Feb 7, 2009, 07:44 PM

battery life is'nt bad...nor excellent for the new MacBooks. i as hoping for between 4 and 5 hours but I usually get no more than 3.5 hours and my Aluminum MacBook is less than a month old.

Sesshi

Feb 8, 2009, 07:43 AM

My 2.4GHz one is about to run out after 4.5 hours running Safari, iTunes, Mail, NetNewsWire and I've played a couple of 720p TV Shows and watched a fair bit of YouTube. Display at full brightness, volume at max.

I'm calibrating it right now - seems to be the same as my BlackBook but watching the HD shows put much less of a strain on the system on this machine than the old one.

Just waiting for it to turn off so I can plug it in and get the battery back to full.

So far I've been seeing near-enough results to the 5hr claimed life.

Same mode as you right now - unplugged, screen brightness full, volume not at max, and in fact, far, far less GPU-intensive usage with mostly Entourage and Firefox, plus a pretty low-impact VPN tunnel.

And it's down to 39% after one and a half hours. And I know all my batteries have the same runtime.

I call fer-laaaaming, humongous, BS.

Sesshi

Feb 8, 2009, 08:06 AM

2 hours. 26%.

Sesshi

Feb 8, 2009, 09:02 AM

Screen brightness full. Wireless on.
Entourage (fully synced prior to unplugging), Firefox, aforementioned low-impact VPN tunnel. One trailer (Firefox), one 5-minute movie (Firefox), five Youtube videos (Firefox). System unused but screen left on for approximately 45 minutes total of this runtime test. Rest of the time spent in Firefox (obviously reading pages so pausing) or Entourage (email composition, calendar jig, etc). Pretty much in fact what I'd do on a laptop if I wasn't doing a lot, but just with the addition of full screen brightness.

Unplugged at 99% charge (and we know that's pretty typical, right?): 12:04
Forced hibernation: 14:54.

As I said, fer-laaaming. What you have here is pretty standard runtime for a low-end 13-inch-class machine, even a number with discrete GPU's which makes it all the more unexceptional. This concept of making up runtime to meet or exceed that of the manufacturer's claim that I see pretty much exclusively on Apple forums is pretty new to me. Is this some sort of unwritten part of devotional duties?

Nik73

Feb 22, 2009, 07:18 AM

Could someone quickly clear something up for me please?

I think we're all agreed (and according to Apple) that the best way to keep the battery in tip top condition is to exercise it for a couple of hours a day. As long as you do this then there's no problem with running it off mains most of the time.

My question is this. I just put my MBP to sleep when not using it, so overnight it loses about 10% charge or about 20% a day if I don't use it until I get in from work. Is this enough daily exercise for the battery or should the battery drop to something more like 50% before being recharged?

Just want to make sure my battery doesn't end up like my Dell, which only has about an hour max now at full charge!!

Thanks in advance.

rayz031

Mar 12, 2009, 05:42 AM

Sorry if i'm a bit out of topic..but as i was checking the battery using coconut, it shows tht my MB is 124 months old! How's tht possible? I've just bought it last week.. can anyone please explain..

labyrinth23

Mar 13, 2009, 04:59 PM

Sorry if i'm a bit out of topic..but as i was checking the battery using coconut, it shows tht my MB is 124 months old! How's tht possible? I've just bought it last week.. can anyone please explain..

Don't worry, mine says that too. I've heard it's just a bug with Cocunut Battery and Leopard. I just bought mine like 2 weeks ago and it has 5 cycles on battery and says it's 124 months old. Use istatpro instead of cocunut battery.

rayz031

Mar 17, 2009, 11:07 AM

Don't worry, mine says that too. I've heard it's just a bug with Cocunut Battery and Leopard. I just bought mine like 2 weeks ago and it has 5 cycles on battery and says it's 124 months old. Use istatpro instead of cocunut battery.

Thanks a lot for tht!.. feeling better now..

waiwai

Mar 17, 2009, 11:22 AM

ive had my aluminum macbook since last december and my battery still lasts a good 2 hours with itunes/cs3/lr2 running. that is way better battery life than what i got out of my MBP 2.16 which lasted me urgh... less than an hour under the same conditions.

jtibbitt

Mar 17, 2009, 12:01 PM

Which is the best battery test to use? Coconut? Is there an OSX utility somewhere?

labyrinth23

Mar 17, 2009, 04:09 PM

Which is the best battery test to use? Coconut? Is there an OSX utility somewhere?

I suggest using iStat Pro. IMHO it's much more accurate then Coconut.

GeekAtBirth

Mar 21, 2009, 12:33 PM

My battery sucks! I was wondering if I should take it in?

Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 2646
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4054
Health Information:
Cycle count: 73
Condition: Good
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -1192
Voltage (mV): 11578

73 Cycles in 4 months...O Lordy

Is my Battery alright still?
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 313
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4212
Health Information:
Cycle count: 24

michael.lauden

Mar 21, 2009, 12:36 PM

iStat Pro for the win.

easy to monitor everything including your battery usage :)

GeekAtBirth

Mar 21, 2009, 12:40 PM

Would it be alright to completely charge you Macbook to 100 percent then use it till it is almost empty then charge it back up?

GeekAtBirth

Mar 21, 2009, 12:43 PM

Would it be alright to completely charge you Macbook to 100 percent then use it till it is almost empty then charge it back up?

I also have 24 Charge cycles in a month and a half. Is this okay?

ayeying

Mar 21, 2009, 01:02 PM

I also have 24 Charge cycles in a month and a half. Is this okay?

Cycles depend on how you use it. It doesn't matter how old the system is.

My 17" MacBook Pro, the new Unibody has 50 cycles in 6 weeks.

GeekAtBirth

Mar 21, 2009, 01:26 PM

Cycles depend on how you use it. It doesn't matter how old the system is.

My 17" MacBook Pro, the new Unibody has 50 cycles in 6 weeks.

What do you mean by how you use it?

SuperMacFan

Mar 21, 2009, 02:22 PM

Does these 2 screenshots look OK?

Any ideas on how i get the amperage down so the battery will last longer?

Just firefox running with wifi - battery reckons there is about 3:05 left.

http://upload2.ws/thumb/22.jpeg (http://upload2.ws/view/22)
http://upload2.ws/thumb/23.jpeg (http://upload2.ws/view/23)

petermcphee

Mar 21, 2009, 02:26 PM

Monitoring the number of battery cycles is a good way to drive yourself nuts. I stopped looking at mine because I was filled with the fear that every time I saw the number of cycles go up I was seeing harm be done to my MacBook. Now, I just ignore it and figure I'll get some good years out of it. My blood pressure is down and the vein in my forehead has stopped throbbing.

HughMungus

Mar 21, 2009, 05:24 PM

After buying a new MacBook 2.4g w 4Gb RAM last week and trying it out this weekend, I'm on 2 charge cycles and noticed that the mac only went for about 2 hours tops on a single charge. Pretty dismal. I found this forum and read with interest the various comparisons - favourable and unfavourable. I tweaked a few settings on the power saver panel to no avail - the meter still estimated under 2 hours right after fully charging.

After a calibration, at full charge my battery meter estimated 1 hour 57. Dimming the screen only helped by about 15 mins at 50%. Then I tried something. I turned off all the settings from the power save, ie turn off hard disk - no, dim display - no, ambient light adjust - no. Sleep time set to never, display off in 1 hour. Screen brightness set to max, Wifi and Bluetooth on. Yes, on.

Fire up Safari, surf a few pages, open a doc in OpenOffice, start up VirtualBox and run a Windows session inside a virtual machine. CPU load now around 15% consistently. Battery meter goes to over 5 hours - that's more like it! So, is it going to actually last that long?

This was at 3pm today. I went out for a few hours and the mac was still estimating 58 minutes when I got back. The battery eventually ran out after well over 5 hours of (admittedly unattended) use!! I know I wasn't at the keyboard but this was at least using wifi power and bluetooth and the virtual session of windows would ensure the CPU was always awake.

It's on charge again now and I intend to try a more scientific test with screenshots etc to prove the point but I do suspect that some of the power save options seem only to make the battery life worse rather than better.

Has anyone else tried the run-down test?

reeveah

Mar 21, 2009, 08:22 PM

Stu-Duncan

Mar 22, 2009, 07:13 AM

My 13" Macbook 2.0 is showing 44% max charge on Cocoanut and 57% on istatpro after just 4-5 months. Disconnected it says 2:59 from full charge (only 57% capacity) and seems to last well under 3 hours. That's very poor.

Rather than Apple say we should go through a discharge cycle, why don't they provide a program like the old battery recondition one? That had you plug the charger in and kick the program off when you went to bed and it drained the battery then trickle charged it. I don't see why it should be the user's responsibility to know how to treat the battery.

I had 2 Macbook Pros before this, a Core 1 Duo and a Santa Rosa and the same with them. Had to replace the battery after 2 years and 1 year respectively. Yet my 12 year old Powerbook 3100 still goes for 2:30 on its battery. Is this related to Intel chips?

Great computers, but battery life and longevity used to be an Apple plus - not any more in my experience.

SD

GeekAtBirth

Mar 22, 2009, 09:24 AM

When ever I drain the battery to cycle it the capacity goes down. Say I am at 100% my capacity is at 4217. When I am at 50% the capacity drops down to 4198. Am I doing something wrong? I charge the battery to 100% then use it until about 8 percent. Then fully charge it. Is this the correct way to handle the battery?

GeekAtBirth

Mar 22, 2009, 09:28 AM

Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 2199
Fully charged: No
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4218
Health Information:
Cycle count: 25
Condition: Good
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -784
Voltage (mV): 11388
l
Should I take my Macbook into the Apple store? Is my battery still okay?

oxox-cocoa-oxox

Mar 23, 2009, 12:02 AM

I find my macbook battery absolutely fine. It even lasted up to 5.5 hours when I'm just doing some word processing!!

GeekAtBirth

Mar 24, 2009, 03:46 PM

Here is my current status.

How can I prolong my Battery Capacity?

GeekAtBirth

Mar 24, 2009, 07:16 PM

I was given 5hrs 20mins battery life last night when only running Firefox and Coconut now says:

Battery-Loadcycles: 2
Maximum Battery Capacity: 4269 mAh (which is slightly up from yesterday)
Original Battery Capacity: 4100 mAh

(I'd check how long it'd give me now but it's still charging.

5000 mAh? Wow, we're a bit off then! Is that after a few calibrations? Haven't calibrated mine yet.

Thanks for the heads-up.
Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 4151
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4151
Original Battery Capacity: 4100 mAh
I am given 5:33

Harmush

Mar 24, 2009, 08:01 PM

i got the 2.0ghz yesterday. charged it last night. and its now 1am on wednesday and i am still using the same charge. not been on the net much but i have had a full day of note taking in university. i had 3 hour lectures and i have been on about an hour. i think i had about 5 hours so far.
half brightness

i am more than happy so far.

now i am going to plug in

10 mins remaining :-p

Dita

Mar 24, 2009, 08:04 PM

is my battery faulty?

92% health after 38 cycles???

I have the new aluminum macbook

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/4224/picture1urs.png

GeekAtBirth

Mar 24, 2009, 08:17 PM

is my battery faulty?

92% health after 38 cycles???

I have the new aluminum macbook

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/4224/picture1urs.png

I am wondering if my battery is bad?
Nobody seems to be telling me tips on how to prolong my battery and when I should charge it! We need HELP!

yogy

Mar 26, 2009, 02:30 PM

Hi,

With only one safari browser on and adium on without itunes or whatsoever, my macbook uni 2.4ghz lasted only 4hrs with all the power saving tips done.

moreover, anyone knows whats going on? My battery time indictor deviates from 5hr - 4hr to 2hr to 3hr and kept going up and down inconsistently... And despite this I still managed to get 4hrs.

its only 5days old with Full Charge Capacity - 4277 and Cycle Count -7

Hi,

i have the same situation...but i have just done one full recharge.
What i find a bit strange is that in the SystemProfiler the amount of amperage in mA is very high, it is about 2011 !!!. And what i see in the activation display is that there are only running two or three processes that are consuming more than about 0 % of the cpu. Bluetooth and the keyboard backlight are off, wlan is on. The batterie has a normal capacity of 4138 mAh
Having not done a complete time measurement yet, i would say the macbook lasts about 3-4 hours maximum. But the time remaining display increases and decreases very often, just opening only a browser.

Any suggestions about the high amperage?
Thanks in advance for some hints!

P.S.: the macbook model is 2.4ghz with 4 gb ram and 250 gb hd

yogy

J&JPolangin

Mar 27, 2009, 03:55 AM

...the longer this thread goes, the more I want to hackintosh an eeePC1000HE and get an iMac for the house...:D

monkeydancer

Mar 27, 2009, 07:32 AM

Take it to the Genius Bar for a replacement in that case. I find it sad these MacBooks use a worse battery than the old ones, they simply use less power resulting in the same times. We could be getting 6-7 hours out of these machines.

Apparently the reason for this change was to make macbook lighter as a whole. Which is still a stupid reason.

Wild-Bill

Mar 27, 2009, 07:47 AM

...the longer this thread goes, the more I want to hackintosh an eeePC1000HE and get an iMac for the house...:D

Agreed. ;)

Jermn8r

Mar 27, 2009, 10:05 AM

Not too happy about my numbers right now, the capacity goes anywhere from 94-96%. I've calibrated about 5 or 6 times but the capacity seems to drop after each calibration.

That being said, I can still squeeze around 4-4:30 hours consistently out of my battery. I guess if it suddenly gets worse or drops below 80% capacity, I will take it in.

My advice to those of you who have a capacity over 4100 mAh is to be happy.

(2.14 ghz unibody purchased in October)

Ramasjang

Mar 27, 2009, 04:18 PM

Hi

Im quite happy with mine:

melissa23

Apr 14, 2009, 04:12 AM

My MBP's battery has been playing up recently. The last few days it was only holding an hour's charge. I drained it and recharged it last night and now it's up to 1 hr 20 mins- this is after I turned off the keyboard backlighting, and the screen brightness to 3 notches from the top. Wifi is always connected.

Here are my coconut battery results. Perhaps it is just old and time for a new one? I have never got 5 hours like some others in this thread; 3 or 4 at the most. I usually have mail, safari, itunes/vlc open.

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/madomwiplash/coconut.jpg

All opinions appreciated.

Melissa.

Aniki

Apr 14, 2009, 08:13 AM

Not bad (MBP FYI, but practically same battery, and I'm on Nvidia 9400m now :rolleyes:.

2 months old now, pretty pleased.

johnny13oi

Apr 15, 2009, 12:30 PM

I get about 6.5 hours on my new white macbook with bluetooth off and screen brightness at about half.

andalusia

Apr 15, 2009, 02:20 PM

I get about 6.5 hours on my new white macbook with bluetooth off and screen brightness at about half.

Same, my new NVidia Whitebook battery seems amazing compared to the new unibody.

This is just using Firefox to read pages on teh Macrumors forums.
http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/9135/picture4x.png

And this is what coconutBattery tells me.
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/2662/picture3xih.png
(please note I've only actually owned this laptop for 9 days, not two months)

New Macbooks really do seem to be bad Batterywise, since the original capacity is actually 900mAh less than the new White Macbooks.

I extended the life of my battery by discharging the laptop totally on first use, and then leaving it turned off to charge all night. It extented it by about 300mAh so worked pretty well :)

zigzag254

Dec 30, 2009, 08:36 PM

Hi,

i have the same situation...but i have just done one full recharge.
What i find a bit strange is that in the SystemProfiler the amount of amperage in mA is very high, it is about 2011 !!!. And what i see in the activation display is that there are only running two or three processes that are consuming more than about 0 % of the cpu. Bluetooth and the keyboard backlight are off, wlan is on. The batterie has a normal capacity of 4138 mAh
Having not done a complete time measurement yet, i would say the macbook lasts about 3-4 hours maximum. But the time remaining display increases and decreases very often, just opening only a browser.

Any suggestions about the high amperage?
Thanks in advance for some hints!

P.S.: the macbook model is 2.4ghz with 4 gb ram and 250 gb hd

yogy

I know this is a very late reply but I may be able to help other users here. I have 2 alu MBs (6 and 9 months old) and the battery life on both suddenly dropped from around 4 hours to 2 hours. Apple very kindly replaced one of the batteries and I paid to replace the other, which had done 300 cycles. However, both of the new batteries showed 2 hour lives after their first calibration.

After wasting ages trying to figure out why my batteries didn't have enough power, I followed the advice of 2 users on this thread and realized that the battery was irrelevant - the problem was that my MBs were both using far too much power.

On searching through Activity Monitor I found both computers had a "printserver" application running under another user's name, both eating up loads of power. Sounds like a virus to me. I managed to end both processes, although it took 3 attempts to force quit on the 2nd computer. Battery life remaining immediately tripled!

If you are using Activity Monitor, make sure you look for All Processes, not just the default My Processes - which doesn't show processes registered in the names of "other users", whoever they are.

I hope this works for others out there - I suspect it will. I'll now try and find out more about this printserver process.