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unibody MBP w/"7 hour" battery - how has your battery life been?

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TheNorthWaves

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 13, 2007
329
18
USA
I am seriously considering purchasing one of the new unibody MBP's with the new "7 hour" battery. Just a couple quick questions for you all:
Do you get 7 hours when you turn wifi off, the screen down to 1/3 brightness, don't use the CD drive/etc, or does it actually last 6-7 hours in normal use (surfing web, screen really bright, backlit keyboard on)?
Has anyone experienced a degradation in battery life after a bunch of cycles? I notice apple claims that the new battery will last 5 years, yet they don't warranty it for more than a year. That does not sound good to me. Opinions?
 
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silverite

macrumors newbie
Jan 27, 2010
14
0
TheNorthWaves said:
I am seriously considering purchasing one of the new unibody MBP's with the new "7 hour" battery. Just a couple quick questions for you all:
Do you get 7 hours when you turn wifi off, the screen down to 1/3 brightness, don't use the CD drive/etc, or does it actually last 6-7 hours in normal use (surfing web, screen really bright, backlit keyboard on)?
Has anyone experienced a degradation in battery life after a bunch of cycles? I notice apple claims that the new battery will last 5 years, yet they don't warranty it for more than a year. That does not sound good to me. Opinions?
Click to expand...

It usually take my laptop to class. I have my laptop on with wifi on, and half brightness (sometimes a bit more than half). After three hours I sometimes have around 40-60% of battery life left (depending if I come to class with a full charge etc).

My macbook pro was ordered perhaps over a month ago - but my friend with a year old mbp tells me that the battery life will start dropping down further on in the road.

So I can say the battery is decent.
 
kernkraft

kernkraft

macrumors 68020
Jun 25, 2009
2,456
1
My '7 hour battery' lasts 4 at the most, but that is wifi everything being turned off, including very dark screen.

I think that it's a disappointment. Don't plan on doing a whole days' work on one battery! Don't worry, you can always have an extra one - oops, sorry! You cannot!
 

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Mintin8

Mintin8

macrumors 6502a
Mar 4, 2009
689
0
United Kingdom
The battery will remain in better conditions if you properly calibrate it every so often. I got around 5 hours with wifi/itunes/word/safari on and brightness at half way.
 
D

Disc Golfer

macrumors 6502a
Dec 17, 2009
582
3
I regularly get 5 hours with bluetooth off, wifi on, keyboard light @ 1 dot, screen at 33%. Watching dvds will decrease battery life to about 3 hours.
 
ARF900

ARF900

macrumors 65816
Oct 30, 2009
1,119
0
Apple doesnt warranty anything for more than a year, yet people have 10 year old macs that are still kickin.

on my 13" I usually get about 5 hours with wifi, itunes, safari, and mail running, backlight on lowest setting, screen brightness 1/3. Bluetooth off

With no backlight, low screen brigtness, and itunes + pages running i usually get 6 1/2 - 7 1/2 hours. 4 hours of HD video playback with wifi and backlight off and screen brightness 1/2 way up.

Remember to keep bluetooth off if your not using it and calibrate your battery. I calibrate every 2 months.
 
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craigc1264

macrumors newbie
Jan 12, 2010
20
0
I get 5 hours easily with everything on and screen at full brightness, and keyboard backlight full as well. When I dim the screen/keyboard, and turn some stuff off it goes up to 7:15.
 
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npep

macrumors member
May 7, 2007
99
0
So, if real life is on the 4-5, maybe 6 hour range. How did Apple come up with 7 hours?

Macbook sitting on the shelf doing nothing for 7 hours?
 
P

Puqq

macrumors regular
Oct 18, 2009
117
0
npep said:
So, if real life is on the 4-5, maybe 6 hour range. How did Apple come up with 7 hours?

Macbook sitting on the shelf doing nothing for 7 hours?
Click to expand...

Yep. This is the standard Max Battery test. New MBP battery usually lasts about 7.15-7.50 on idle. You cannot measure the actual battery life acurately, because it really depends on the way you use your PC. From tests, MBP has juice for ~6 hours in reading test (open document/website, half brightness, scrolling down time after time) and 4-6 for standard use (browsing, reading, typing and video (not DVD))

Apple may seem to lie a little about the battery life, on the other hand most other manufacturers lie even about Max Battery life...
 
kny3twalker

kny3twalker

macrumors 65816
Oct 25, 2009
1,241
0
I have seen my battery calculator hit over 10 hours sitting at idle, and I can easily make it through an hour and twenty minute class and still have close to 90% left on my battery. During class, I am usually typing code, reading pdfs or powerpoints, and/or surfing the web (lightly), so while I agree 5 or 6 hours is closer to what is achievable with normal work loads, I think 7 hours is very possible without wifi off and the screen very dim.
 
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Symbolism

macrumors newbie
Jan 19, 2010
12
0
I usually get around 6 hours of use a day while I'm on campus at my university taking lecture notes on Word Document, Facebook, etc. with no backlight and 70% screen brightness.

Keep in mind I've only calibrated my battery once or twice in 8 months use with 61 cycles... so my indicator might be a bit wrong (I finally found time to calibrate today over the three day weekend).
 
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tomas4jj

macrumors newbie
Feb 13, 2010
1
0
my "airport hardware" has disappeared, wtf?!

All of a sudden on my powerbook g4 the airport has just disappeared, says it can't find any "airport hardware." Wifi gone, i'm writing this with an ethernet cord. What happened? What can I do? Help me . . .
 
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TheNorthWaves

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 13, 2007
329
18
USA
tomas4jj said:
All of a sudden on my powerbook g4 the airport has just disappeared, says it can't find any "airport hardware." Wifi gone, i'm writing this with an ethernet cord. What happened? What can I do? Help me . . .
Click to expand...

Thread hijack of the CENTURY, haha :D

Thank you all for the replies - keep them coming! Please post your model/processor speed as well, if you know
 
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gazzamac

macrumors member
Jan 17, 2010
85
1
My 4 month old mbp lasts around 6 hours light use with backlight at half way.

Very happy with that
 
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michaelfengdayu

macrumors member
Jun 22, 2007
71
0
It really depends on how you use it

It really depends on how you use it. The CPU uses 5-45 watt. hard drive 1-3 watt. screen I guess 10 watt at most with LED? I got 7.5 hrs with internet browsing and viewing PDFs. But only 3.5 when watching Youtube no matter how I adjust the screen.
 
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tongrd

macrumors newbie
Sep 26, 2009
15
0
I've gotten 9-10 hours out of a 17" MBP, though I do conserve battery :) usually this includes wifi off, lowest brightness and display sleep in 1 minute. Otherwise I think 6 hours with just under half brightness is about right.
 
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