10 Hour Battery Really?

[NT1440]

It's all a marketing gimmick I'm afraid. To achieve 10 hours of battery life you have to have your screen on the dimmest setting, Wifi + Bluetooth turned off, and basically sitting idle doing nothing. Realistically you might gain another hour of battery life when doing your normal day-to-day tasks compared to the previous MacBook Pro's.

Do you even bother reading their site? Apple posts exactly what tests they do and at what settings to get their time estimates.

 

[drjsway]

The iPad gets 18.5 hours in iBooks with minimal brightness. 11 to 12 hours with moderate to high use is accurate.

Apple has been very conservative in their battery claims the last few years. The old MBPs really did get more than 7 and 8 hours and I have no doubt the new MBP will get more than 10. Also, it is not "up to 10 hours". They test at 50% brightness, wifi browsing, while word processing at the same time. If you are do less than that and turn the brightness down, you will get more.

Compare that to most PC makers, who wildly exaggerate their battery life.

 

[Patrick J]

The problem with the 7 hours of the 2009 MBP is that you can get 7 hours with a new battery, using PAGES and SAFARI. Use iTunes and Firefox and you get 5 to 6 hours.

 

[ubercool]

FWIW I just got the new MBP 15" and am on it right now. My battery is at 3:44 at 93%. Pretty disappointing. Hopefully it will get better after the first cycle maybe?

No that's normal. Apple's estimates are grossly inflated.

 

[azieli02]

not 10 hours but pretty good none the less

It's "up to 10 hours." They must have also made various system optimizations to make the claim.

I know that there is not a 10 hour battery life, but I have gotten 7-8 hours out of my new Macbook pro 15". I set my brightness to about 75% and mostly use it for surfing the web. if you watch a movie it runs for as long as it says so you can watch up to 3 movies on just the battery. As a matter of fact just today I left my charger at work and had to do homework with adobe Dream weaver, and In design, my battery lasted through an hour and a half running those programs and it is 1am and it still has an hour and a half on it and I've been surfing the web on and off all night. So it really does have a great battery. I am new to the mac world, but I love my mac and will more than likely never return to the PC world.

 

[cys920622]

It's all a marketing gimmick I'm afraid. To achieve 10 hours of battery life you have to have your screen on the dimmest setting, Wifi + Bluetooth turned off, and basically sitting idle doing nothing. Realistically you might gain another hour of battery life when doing your normal day-to-day tasks compared to the previous MacBook Pro's.

Oh?

But your +1 hour theory is probably correct. There is no monumental increase here from the last MBP.

 

[Patrick J]

No that's normal. Apple's estimates are grossly inflated.

I disagree. You need to calibrate new batteries; many only reach full capacity after 3 or 4 charges.

 

[zer0sum]

Impressive results on the 15" i7 version

"...DVD rundown test, in which we loop a movie until the battery dies, the battery lasted an astounding 6 hours and 55 minutes. That time bests the last version of the MacBook Pro by almost two hours and is hours ahead of its nearest competitors..."

It is only one review...but that looks very promising.
We just have to wait and see based on further reviews and comments.

Z

 

[JaZzMaN251]

The wireless productivity test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing various websites and editing text in a word processing document with display brightness set to 50%.

I wonder which Apple employee has to do these 10 hours of web surfing and text editing tests

 

[Cycom]

It's a BS claim by Apple, of course. Nobody gets 9-10 hours from normal use.

 

[Patrick J]

It's a BS claim by Apple, of course. Nobody gets 9-10 hours from normal use.

And you have had the laptop and tested then? No offense, I call BS claim by you.

 

[tdream]

The iPad gets 18.5 hours in iBooks with minimal brightness. 11 to 12 hours with moderate to high use is accurate.

Apple has been very conservative in their battery claims the last few years. The old MBPs really did get more than 7 and 8 hours and I have no doubt the new MBP will get more than 10. Also, it is not "up to 10 hours". They test at 50% brightness, wifi browsing, while word processing at the same time. If you are do less than that and turn the brightness down, you will get more.

Compare that to most PC makers, who wildly exaggerate their battery life.

 

[Cycom]

And you have had the laptop and tested then? No offense, I call BS claim by you.

Look at my sig. Remember when Apple claimed that this previous revision of the MBP would get 8 hours of battery life? It was and is BS. Nobody gets this much under normal, everyday use. Keep dreaming, brah.

 

[DKfraDK]

Look at my sig. Remember when Apple claimed that this previous revision of the MBP would get 8 hours of battery life? It was and is BS. Nobody gets this much under normal, everyday use. Keep dreaming, brah.

I believe it was 7 hours on the 13" and 15". They only claimed 8 on the 17".

I have had the base 13" 2.26 june MBP and it could certainly achieve 7 hours

 

[gnasher729]

Battery life matters to me, perhaps as much as speed and resolution, 'tho I am tempted by these shiny objects...

To this end, do the faster CPUs, 7200 drive and higher resolution screens use more battery power? If I REALLY want long life, is the base 15" the best choice (of the 15")?

Informed answers appreciated.

Apple says: 13" = 10 hours, 15" = 8-9 hours. So no matter how long the batteries last for what you are doing, the 13" will last longer than the 15".

I suspect power consumption has been lowered down to the point where the screen uses most of the power. Would be interesting if someone could do a test: How long does the MacBookPro 13" run doing nothing with screen at 100%, and how long with screen at 50% brightness.

 

[BeachChair]

If the 15" gets 7 hours DVD playback, 10 hours for the 13" isn't unthinkable.

 

[Jof]

"Yes, really"
-- Steve


Quite a few people are getting this life on the 13", judging by forums/reviews elsewhere. Don't ask me for sauce; I'm sure you have google like the rest of us

 

[BeachChair]

"Yes, really"
-- Steve


Quite a few people are getting this life on the 13", judging by forums/reviews elsewhere. Don't ask me for sauce; I'm sure you have google like the rest of us

Sauce? I haven't found a review of the 13"

 

[reallynotnick]

As a student I love to carry my 13in MBP with me all day, I have even contemplated switching to this new model just for the better battery life. I have a feeling the new 13in MBP is going to be super popular with students like myself.
Now I wish Apple would do something similar to the MBA in terms of battery life.

 

[fuzzielitlpanda]

just got the 13" 2.4GHz MBP yesterday and have been using it off and on. I don't have any concrete benchmarks, but from doing normal browsing with bluetooth off, wifi on, back-lit keyboard lowest brightness, and screen at half brightness, i easily get 8-9 hours. i'm sure if I turned screen brightness all the way down, wifi off, I would hit the 10 hour mark. It really doesn't matter I'm really liking the extra battery life on this thing compared to previous gen

 

[Cycom]

Well, fair enough. Seems that reports are proving me wrong. 8 hours on a laptop is nothing short of astounding.

 

[Patrick J]

Look at my sig. Remember when Apple claimed that this previous revision of the MBP would get 8 hours of battery life? It was and is BS. Nobody gets this much under normal, everyday use. Keep dreaming, brah.

The previous Macbook Pro 13" didn't have 8 hours. It was up to 7 hours. I got 7 hours when using, like they say, Pages and Safari, with brightness at half. Other programs brought it down to 6.

 

[Furrybeagle]

It really annoys me that Jobs is claiming that they are foregoing better CPU and/or graphics and/or HDD upgrades in the 13" Pros and are claiming battery life as their excuse.

I'm sure I'm not in the popular group here, but I really don't care about having more than 5 hours of battery unless I'm on a plane or something (at which point I could, ya know... plug it in).

What are you talking about? Steve Jobs said this:

We chose killer graphics plus 10 hour battery life over a very small CPU speed increase. Users will see far more performance boost from the speedy graphics.

They are forgoing a marginally faster (but supposedly less efficient) processor so they can continue to use faster gpus. If they were using the i3 they’d be using slower gpus.

 

[iPhysicist]

My Battery lasts for 5:30 to 6:00h with all typical "office" apps (Mail, iCal, Pages, Numbers, Safari, Address book, Adium and Skype) active, wifi on and doing my job. So I can't complain.

I usually bust the 7h when using Safari only and do some (Click to flash protected) light internet research.

Note: I set my C2D to 1GHz when my MBP is unplugged as usual Brightness is at half. Furthermore I do not trust the "intelligent" intel stepping so I use coolbook and smc alongside click to flash for best battery life. I do no heavy math or physics while unplugged

 

[Patrick J]

My Battery lasts for 5:30 to 6:00h with all typical "office" apps (Mail, iCal, Pages, Numbers, Safari, Address book, Adium and Skype) active, wifi on and doing my job. So I can't complain.

I usually bust the 7h when using Safari only and do some (Click to flash protected) light internet research.

Note: I set my C2D to 1GHz when my MBP is unplugged as usual Brightness is at half. Furthermore I do not trust the "intelligent" intel stepping so I use coolbook and smc alongside click to flash for best battery life. I do no heavy math or physics while unplugged

Which generation Macbook Pro is this? 13" 2009?