Battery life?

That's about what I get when I'm trying to conserve battery life (similar settings to you). When I just use the computer normally without shutting down the dozens of programs I usually have open and with screen brightness about 2/3 max I get about 5hrs.

I'll be upgrading this computer whenever they can figure out how to give macbook airs true all day battery life. Hopefully Haswell will be a start.

I'm at 5 hours right now with brightness 1 bar off from max, 33% battery left - Says 1:55 to go. Surfing/typing/emails/streaming music. With the brightness really low, I usually get just over 8 hours. I wonder if I could squeeze out 10 hrs without wifi.

Howdee said:

How many hours are you getting on your MBAs (13")?

I'm getting roughly 6-7 on light usage and it still doesn't feel like it's enough. lol
Bluetooth off, screen brightness on 4th bar from the lowest setting.

Click to expand...

There are many factors that impact your battery life. See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details, including tips on how to maximize your battery life. This should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions:

Howdee said:

How many hours are you getting on your MBAs (13")?

I'm getting roughly 6-7 on light usage and it still doesn't feel like it's enough. lol
Bluetooth off, screen brightness on 4th bar from the lowest setting.

Click to expand...

I can get 8 hours at uni if the brightness it low.

Used my 2011 MBA daily since I had it. Has only 160 odd cycles on the battery but its defiantly taken a hit.

Health fluctuates between 80 and 84 and as soon as I unplug it the battery indicator falls to 99% within 30 seconds and falls to 97 fairly rapidly.

General use would be browser, email, Skype and similar. It's plugged in most of the day but I never shut it down, it always sleeps sometimes with a thunderbolt monitor plugged in. It likes to seep battery whilst sleeping so I wonder if this has lead to a health decline. It gets used off the charger occasionally and if its lost 5%-10% sleeping I normally let it drain a bit and recharge.

Not that happy how the battery has ended up. It normally lasts between 4 and 5 hours. 6 hours with light usage and low brightness.

When I first got it, it read 12 hours at 100% and lasted an easy 8 hours doing the same things.

Apart from the decline the only criticism is the horrible sleep/charger bug. If it went to sleep with the charger active and then I turn off the plug a few hours later, if I wake up the next morning and turn on the plug before waking it up it runs very hot and fans go berserk until I reboot it. Silly bug that has never been fixed. S I have to remember to wake it up first before turning on the plug. Other than that fantastic machine.

Ok.. so how bad is it that my 21 months MBA has dropped to 79% current capacity?
I have reached 830 cycles Is that too much? I use it for work and pretty much anything else, but its life is almost the same (it changed a bit when I upgraded to Mountain Lion). The battery life varies from time to time. When I work it lasts even for 4 h (wi-fi on, music on, 2 browsers on).

When I travel, it lasts up to 5-5 1/2 h. When I'm traveling I watch only movies, the wi-fi is 98% of the time turned off.

My biggest problem is that now (for 2 days) it shows from time to time Service Battery. Have I reached a critical situation where I really really have to change it? My battery life is influenced somehow by that?

Battery life is always an issue until one day, like been staring at the screen so long that I felt the need to just close the dang thing and walk away and the machine was still at 35%. I figure that's good enough for me.

nheea said:

Ok.. so how bad is it that my 21 months MBA has dropped to 79% current capacity?
I have reached 830 cycles Is that too much? I use it for work and pretty much anything else, but its life is almost the same (it changed a bit when I upgraded to Mountain Lion). The battery life varies from time to time. When I work it lasts even for 4 h (wi-fi on, music on, 2 browsers on).

When I travel, it lasts up to 5-5 1/2 h. When I'm traveling I watch only movies, the wi-fi is 98% of the time turned off.

My biggest problem is that now (for 2 days) it shows from time to time Service Battery. Have I reached a critical situation where I really really have to change it? My battery life is influenced somehow by that?

Click to expand...

I'm assuming you have a 2011 MBA. If that is the case, the battery is rated for 80% after 1000 charge cycles. You've pretty much have used up its life, especially being at 830 charge cycles. The service battery message is coming up because you have dropped below 80%. You might be able to get the health above 80% for a little bit longer, but asa it continues to drop the service battery message won't go away until you replace the battery.

My girlfriends battery only last to 450 charges before dropping below 80%. Even though it is rated at 1000 cycles, different factors will change that number.

Mlrollin91 said:

I'm assuming you have a 2011 MBA. If that is the case, the battery is rated for 80% after 1000 charge cycles. You've pretty much have used up its life, especially being at 830 charge cycles. The service battery message is coming up because you have dropped below 80%. You might be able to get the health above 80% for a little bit longer, but asa it continues to drop the service battery message won't go away until you replace the battery.

My girlfriends battery only last to 450 charges before dropping below 80%. Even though it is rated at 1000 cycles, different factors will change that number.

Click to expand...

Ok, thank you. Indeed my MBA it's from 2011.
I shall re-calibrate it tonight and hope for the best. If it would work at least another 3 months I'm more than happy