11 inch MBA battery.

[ironman92]

I could have sworn my battery life should be around 5 hours after being fully charged just realised after a week of having my macbook air that its only lasting about 2 hours?

should i go take it back?

 

[miles01110]

Battery life is dependent on usage. Odds are you're in the 99% of people who post about their battery life that don't have any real problems.

 

[ironman92]

possibly but would my battery drain that much with just having iTunes open?
nothing else. and having the keyboard and screen brightness at the lowest possible setting? and volume isn't on full blast either.

 

[TheJing]

possibly but would my battery drain that much with just having iTunes open?
nothing else. and having the keyboard and screen brightness at the lowest possible setting? and volume isn't on full blast either.

2 hours seems pretty bad but chances are there is nothing wrong with your battery.

 

[Abazigal]

Are you playing music through speakers or earphones? Speakers use considerably more power, IIRC.

Itunes can be quite cpu-intensive, so I don't find it surprising the batt drains that fast. You would get the 5-hour batt life on an 11' MBA when doing light stuff such as word processing (and nothing else). Else, expect ~3 hours of typical usage. About 2.5 hours of itunes running in the background seems about right.

 

[vitzr]

The batteries Apple uses in their laptops are very high quality. The chance of you having a bad battery is very slim. It sounds like the run times you are getting are consistent. That indicates the battery is OK.

Battery life is greatly affected by hundreds of variables, therefore it's just too hard to compare one persons to another. In addition battery life never meets what's advertised. That's a fact with all brands not just Apple.

Just use it and enjoy it. If it really concerns you contact Apple.

 

[Sgenea]

Is it that bad?

Is your bluetooth on?

Brightness set to maximum?

Wifi on?

Playing a game?

Playing music?

Flash applications are webpages?

Have an external drive connected?

External monitor connected?

My 3 months old 11" has about 40% battery after reading for an hour, skyping and editing docs for another 2 hours at the cafe. Brightness set to one bar less than half, bluetooth off-ed.

 

[ironman92]

Thanks for the replies. i guess its normal then, just thought 2 hours wasn't that long.

@Sgenea Other than having wifi on i only had iTunes running. brightness for keyboard and screen at the lowest.

 

[3dflyboy1]

Thanks for the replies. i guess its normal then, just thought 2 hours wasn't that long.

@Sgenea Other than having wifi on i only had iTunes running. brightness for keyboard and screen at the lowest.

Don't know if this was already said, but if it's consistently getting 2hrs, nothing's wrong.

Maybe look into a different media player to avoid high CPU usage.

 

[Stingray454]

Thanks for the replies. i guess its normal then, just thought 2 hours wasn't that long.

@Sgenea Other than having wifi on i only had iTunes running. brightness for keyboard and screen at the lowest.

2 hours for this doesn't sound quite right imo. Just today I was watching a movie while playing World of Warcraft (was just afk in the game, but still logged in) when I accidentally pulled out my power chord without noticing. After what must have been at least 20-30 minutes after it got unplugged it showed >2h remaining, and that was with about 75% screen brightness, a movie playing and a 3d game running. With low screen brightness, only itunes and wifi running you should have 4-5 hours imo.

 

[TheJing]

I just got 3 hours and 20 minutes from my 11" just web browsing with brightness set to only 4 bars.

Really disappointed with the battery life. Except for that, this computer is excellent.

 

[IngerMan]

A key trick in owning an 11" MBA, have more then one power brick. I keep one by the sofa and recliner, another at the table I use it at. When home I mostly have it plugged in.

 

[summitRun]

I have never got less than 4 hours on my 11" MBA with iTunes open and web browsing (mostly with Chrome)...but I rarely go above 4 bars on my brightness...which I think makes a big difference.

 

[ironman92]

So the people who are getting more than my 2 hours, do you think i should ask for a battery replacement?

 

[happyslayer]

You might consider checking with the Genius Bar.

I have a Core i7 11" Air and I usually always get about 3.5-4 hours of battery use. I don't do as much iTunes usage as you do, but I do run Safari and Storyist (a Novel Writing/Word processor) with my brightness about half and KB lighting at just above the off setting. Also, BlueTooth off, WiFi on. I have used iTunes, but not for the whole time that I am using the Air.

I will maybe try to have it (iTunes) running when I do my next writing session (less than 23 hours to the start of NaNoWriMo!) and I'll let you know what I get.

 

[toiday]

It seems that you may have the iPhone 4S syndrome 🙂... I'm glad I read this post because I was considering of getting a 13" MBA after so impress with the battery life on the iPad 2. The Apple Website indicates that batter life on 13" MBA is 7 hours. But I guess they don't expect you would do much with it.

 

[ironman92]

It seems that you may have the iPhone 4S syndrome 🙂... I'm glad I read this post because I was considering of getting a 13" MBA after so impress with the battery life on the iPad 2. The Apple Website indicates that batter life on 13" MBA is 7 hours. But I guess they don't expect you would do much with it.

The battery might not be all that great but I do love the laptop especially lion OS. I take it to school to do coursework, and its nice being able to create multiple desktops. and switching between them with a swipe of my fingers.

 

[darkheroz]

I could have sworn my battery life should be around 5 hours after being fully charged just realised after a week of having my macbook air that its only lasting about 2 hours?

should i go take it back?

My MBA 11's battery was in the same issue. After 10-12 cycles situation became better.

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

I agree with Darkheroz. I found that my battery life improved after 10-12 cycles too. I've been told that it takes a few cycles for the battery to perform properly.

So my advice is to wait another week and see.

Others here have been quite critical of the battery as a whole, so I thought I'd throw in my two-penny's-worth.

My battery often lasts longer than 5 hours, but I often have wifi off. Most of the other posters here seem to always have wifi on. I use my MBA for work mostly, and I don't want to be interrupted by emails every 5 minutes, so I don't need it on all the time.

Apple's website claims you can get 5 hours wireless web browsing with brightness set at 50%. I've never got that when I've tried it, but I've learned to take manufacturer's laptop battery claims with a pinch of salt.