Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

It Just Won't Die! 2013 Macbook Air 11" Battery Life Results

C

catalyst07

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 15, 2013
82
8
OK, the results are in!

So for those of you who participated in the 2013 11" Air battery life thread I started, I want to say thank you. Your help led me to purchase an 11" i7 8gb with 256gb ssd.


Well my personal battery life results are in-

My setup---
-Brightness set to 6 filled boxes
-Bluetooth off
-Powernap off
-Rails server running in the background
-Used only Chrome browser(with 40-45 tabs up at any time)
-Keyboard brightness off
-Sound volume 5 empty boxes from maximum

I used my iphone stopwatch to keep track of time.

I work as a software engineer in silicon valley and it's primary use is web development. It's my only machine so it has to do double duty for personal work as well.

I worked doing web development and browsing for 5-6 hours while listening to music, youtube videos, 7 hours of sleep, and heavy web browsing and music for the remaining time.


From 100% - 0% my total time was: 10hrs 55minutes 55seconds!


At 10hrs 44min it told me I was on reserve power and it lasted another 13minutes before it finally went into sleep mode.

So it gave me 11 hours of battery life under normal use PLUS 7 hours of sleep mode. And this was my first charge on the battery...

Overall I'm very happy to have upgraded from my 2012 i7 8gb Air which at best would give me half of that battery life. I'm also excited because now I no longer have to carry my charger unless I'm going on a weekend trip!

I hope this helps you guys out there making a decision; the i7 battery life "hit" is completely worth the performance gain. Mavericks should prove even better battery life once it's released and if they didn't feel like such giant clumsy machines, my mind would entertain the idea of an 13" i7 Air just for the battery life prospects.


Thanks, -catalyst07
 
Last edited:
C

chabig

macrumors G4
Sep 6, 2002
11,243
8,931
I have the 11" i7 too and love it, but I haven't run the battery down yet. It's faster than my 2011 13" MacBook Pro.
 
N

nariza7

macrumors member
Jun 16, 2013
69
0
catalyst07 said:
OK, the results are in!

So for those of you who participated in the 2013 11" Air battery life thread I started, I want to say thank you. Your help led me to purchase an 11" i7 8gb with 256gb ssd.


Well my personal battery life results are in-

My setup---
-Brightness set to 6 filled boxes
-Bluetooth off
-Powernap off
-Rails server running in the background
-Used only Chrome browser(with 40-45 tabs up at any time)
-Keyboard brightness off
-Sound volume 5 empty boxes from maximum

I used my iphone stopwatch to keep track of time.

I work as a software engineer in silicon valley and it's primary use is web development. It's my only machine so it has to do double duty for personal work as well.

I worked doing web development and browsing for 5-6 hours while listening to music, youtube videos, 7 hours of sleep, and heavy web browsing and music for the remaining time.


From 100% - 0% my total time was: 10hrs 55minutes 55seconds!


At 10hrs 44min it told me I was on reserve power and it lasted another 13minutes before it finally went into sleep mode.

So it gave me 11 hours of battery life under normal use PLUS 7 hours of sleep mode. And this was my first charge on the battery...

Overall I'm very happy to have upgraded from my 2012 i7 8gb Air which at best would give me half of that battery life. I'm also excited because now I no longer have to carry my charger unless I'm going on a weekend trip!

I hope this helps you guys out there making a decision; the i7 battery life "hit" is completely worth the performance gain. Mavericks should prove even better battery life once it's released and if they didn't feel like such giant clumsy machines, my mind would entertain the idea of an 13" i7 Air just for the battery life prospects.


Thanks, -catalyst07
Click to expand...

My 11/i7/8 is getting like 5 hrs...may I ask what settings you are using with the mac air? Like screen brightness, safari vs chrome (with clicktoflash?), keyboard brightness, bluetooth on/off, etc. Any of the setting parameters that you give will be helpful. Thank you
 
C

catalyst07

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 15, 2013
82
8
nariza7 said:
My 11/i7/8 is getting like 5 hrs...may I ask what settings you are using with the mac air? Like screen brightness, safari vs chrome (with clicktoflash?), keyboard brightness, bluetooth on/off, etc. Any of the setting parameters that you give will be helpful. Thank you
Click to expand...

Did you read what I posted?
 
N

nariza7

macrumors member
Jun 16, 2013
69
0
lol oops. for some reason my eyes went straight to 10 hours haha. Actually did you install clicktoflash or something equivalent to disable flash for chrome? I installed clicktoflash, and now my battery life has improved a lot I'd say. in like 2 hours 50 min, I've only dropped 25% from opening a new tab in safari every 30 seconds. I was wondering if that was the same case for you
 
J

jdechko

macrumors 601
Jul 1, 2004
4,230
325
nariza7 said:
lol oops. for some reason my eyes went straight to 10 hours haha. Actually did you install clicktoflash or something equivalent to disable flash for chrome? I installed clicktoflash, and now my battery life has improved a lot I'd say. in like 2 hours 50 min, I've only dropped 25% from opening a new tab in safari every 30 seconds. I was wondering if that was the same case for you
Click to expand...

One good way to improve battery life is to remove flash completely. That way Safari doesn't even try to load it. Use Chrome as a second browser when you want to do something that requires flash, as Chrome has flash built-in.
 
J

johnjey

macrumors regular
Jun 17, 2013
245
2
Northern CA
catalyst07 said:
OK, the results are in!

So for those of you who participated in the 2013 11" Air battery life thread I started, I want to say thank you. Your help led me to purchase an 11" i7 8gb with 256gb ssd.


Well my personal battery life results are in-

My setup---
-Brightness set to 6 filled boxes
-Bluetooth off
-Powernap off
-Rails server running in the background
-Used only Chrome browser(with 40-45 tabs up at any time)
-Keyboard brightness off
-Sound volume 5 empty boxes from maximum

I used my iphone stopwatch to keep track of time.

I work as a software engineer in silicon valley and it's primary use is web development. It's my only machine so it has to do double duty for personal work as well.

I worked doing web development and browsing for 5-6 hours while listening to music, youtube videos, 7 hours of sleep, and heavy web browsing and music for the remaining time.


From 100% - 0% my total time was: 10hrs 55minutes 55seconds!


At 10hrs 44min it told me I was on reserve power and it lasted another 13minutes before it finally went into sleep mode.

So it gave me 11 hours of battery life under normal use PLUS 7 hours of sleep mode. And this was my first charge on the battery...

Overall I'm very happy to have upgraded from my 2012 i7 8gb Air which at best would give me half of that battery life. I'm also excited because now I no longer have to carry my charger unless I'm going on a weekend trip!

I hope this helps you guys out there making a decision; the i7 battery life "hit" is completely worth the performance gain. Mavericks should prove even better battery life once it's released and if they didn't feel like such giant clumsy machines, my mind would entertain the idea of an 13" i7 Air just for the battery life prospects.


Thanks, -catalyst07
Click to expand...

Lol, did you just DREAMT all these numbers? Doesn't feel real at all, play a FLASH video and the battery will cry at 3% within 5 hours ! NOt to mention the DREAFUL NETFLIX (silverlight) HD videos :(
 
Last edited:
L

larry918

macrumors regular
Jun 29, 2013
128
0
Wow these numbers are extraordinary for the 11 inch! I'm on the new 13 inch, and my numbers are just a *tad* bit higher, although I am a someone who always uses full brightness :D
 
L

larry918

macrumors regular
Jun 29, 2013
128
0
Sorry guess I wasn't very clear :) I use full brightness while surfing Safari, but when I'm listening to music, I bring it down to about 75%.
 
ValSalva

ValSalva

macrumors 68040
Jun 26, 2009
3,783
259
Burpelson AFB
These are incredible numbers. I can't wait to see what Mavericks GM or 10.9.1 or 10.9.2 gives for battery life.

I have Mavericks installed on a 2009 C2D 3.06GHz 15" MBP and DP3 give me ~25% better battery life than SL did. Might we see 12-13 hours with mature Mavericks on the 11" MBA?
 
L

larry918

macrumors regular
Jun 29, 2013
128
0
ValSalva said:
These are incredible numbers. I can't wait to see what Mavericks GM or 10.9.1 or 10.9.2 gives for battery life.

I have Mavericks installed on a 2009 C2D 3.06GHz 15" MBP and DP3 give me ~25% better battery life than SL did. Might we see 12-13 hours with mature Mavericks on the 11" MBA?
Click to expand...

I would love to see that too! I have also read somewhere on Apple's website that video/music playback with iTunes will reduce CPU usage by as much as ~30%. Huge for me considering I almost always have music playing in the background :D
 
gnasher729

gnasher729

Suspended
Nov 25, 2005
17,980
5,565
jdechko said:
One good way to improve battery life is to remove flash completely. That way Safari doesn't even try to load it. Use Chrome as a second browser when you want to do something that requires flash, as Chrome has flash built-in.
Click to expand...

That applies not only to the new MBA, but to all Apple laptops.

I use ClickToFlash in Safari myself, so _if_ you want to see something that needs flash, you can just click on it and don't need a second browser.
 
W

wermy

macrumors regular
Apr 15, 2013
205
1
I'm getting similar numbers on an i7/8GB/256GB model with a mix of Chrome, Xcode, Steam, Dropbox, and a few misc little apps (like terminal).
Loving this thing! Glad I went with the i7 - if I had listened to all the initial speculation about i7 vs i5 battery, I'd probably have gone for the i5.
 
J

johnjey

macrumors regular
Jun 17, 2013
245
2
Northern CA
wermy said:
I'm getting similar numbers on an i7/8GB/256GB model with a mix of Chrome, Xcode, Steam, Dropbox, and a few misc little apps (like terminal).
Loving this thing! Glad I went with the i7 - if I had listened to all the initial speculation about i7 vs i5 battery, I'd probably have gone for the i5.
Click to expand...

YOur is 13' ?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom