i've been set on getting a 14" ibook for a while now. however i refuse to buy one now and get hardware thats almost a year old. i've starting thinking that maybe i should get a 12" powerbook instead. the main thing i'm worried about is battery life. i've heard the ibooks get significantly more life out of their batteries then powerbooks. can anyone here give me some realistic times for how much time they get from a full charge of a powerbook battery ?
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12" pb battery life
- Thread starter jamie329
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I don't have a PowerBook, so I can't say how much you get on one PowerBook charge, but I do know that iBooks have better battery lives than PowerBooks.jamie329 said:
I typically get about 3 to 3.5 hrs on a battery, but I don't use many of the power saving options that are available. If I use them I get get up to 4 hrs. I need 2 batteries to get through a school day if I can't sit near a plug in.
Mine is only a couple of weeks old and I think a full charge lasts approx 4 hours. As other people have said it depends what you're doing. For me I'm mostly just running Safari, Mail, iTunes and occasionally Photoshop.
sort of goes without saying that ibook battery life is better than the powerbook... the powerbook is a more powerful machine!
sort of goes without saying that ibook battery life is better than the powerbook... the powerbook is a more powerful machine!
I used to get 3/3 1/2 hours but now I get about 1! From what others have said it's a problem that's plagued as Rev B'ers, more so than any other other Rev.
From experience the iBook does seem able to milk more from the battery than the PB's, not surprising as the PB is bound to be more "demanding". Don't think the difference in battery life between iBooks and Powerbooks is that huge though.
Can I ask why you're keen on the 14"? It's just that I don't see the added benefit of hulking around a larger laptop when the screen resolution is the same as the 12".
From experience the iBook does seem able to milk more from the battery than the PB's, not surprising as the PB is bound to be more "demanding". Don't think the difference in battery life between iBooks and Powerbooks is that huge though.
Can I ask why you're keen on the 14"? It's just that I don't see the added benefit of hulking around a larger laptop when the screen resolution is the same as the 12".
Hm, I ripped a dvd to my HD and watched that (very low brightness display setting w/ BT and AE off) for the duration (around 2 hours) and my battery display said I had another hour or so left. How do you get such good battery life? Or does watching a movie count as "processor intensive?"hcuar said:
DVD watching requires use of the processor for decoding and spins up the hard drive (if ripped. if not then the dvd drive spins up which is worse) much more than normal usage. Yes, I would call that intensive for a portable on battery power.devilot76 said:
I thought it would be possible to squeeze a little more space out of the 14" by making some things smaller (i.e the dock, font sizes, etc) Please tell me if this is unrealistic.
The more I think about it though, the more I want the 12" pb. I'm going to be using it mainly for school next year (first year engineering). I also plan on doing some software development on it. I have an external display I can plug it into at home, however can anyone tell me if I'll have enough room to comfortably use xcode when using the laptop display ?
jamie329 said:
I guess so but ultimately it'll still be 1024x768 so you're not really going to benefit that much by just squishing things.
jamie329 said:
Exposé (and hot corners) is a wonderful thing
It's unrealistic.jamie329 said:
You can't make the pixels smaller which means that the clarity of the screen never changes. Smaller fonts and such will just get muddier the further down you get and it won't be worth it.
I say 12" ibook is cheap enough if you're a student and the PB is good if you really need a bit more for much more $. The screen is the same res in all the models you are looking at, so concentrate on hardware.
(Assuming brightness is at no more than 4 bars and bluetooth turned off) 3.5 to 4 hours doing stuff like programming and web browsing; 4.5 hrs if I'm just typing a paper and have my airport off; 3 hrs if I'm doing processor intensive stuff (non-gaming); and 2-2.25 hrs for gaming intensive stuff. I think I may be able to squeeze out battery (I'd say maybe 30 minutes) if I set my processor to reduced and bring my brightness to 1-2 bars.
See my signature for my PowerBook specs.
I'm a programmer (first year computer science this fall ) and even though I use Eclipse primarily, I tend to use Xcode rather often as well, and I find no problem programming on Xcode with the 1024x768 screen, just maximize the windows and take advantage of Expose; or you can always just have all the Editor windows inside the Project Window and keep that maximized (this is what I do).
I'd be happy to send you/post up a screen shot of me using Xcode on my PowerBook 12" if you'd like.
See my signature for my PowerBook specs.
I'm a programmer (first year computer science this fall
) and even though I use Eclipse primarily, I tend to use Xcode rather often as well, and I find no problem programming on Xcode with the 1024x768 screen, just maximize the windows and take advantage of Expose; or you can always just have all the Editor windows inside the Project Window and keep that maximized (this is what I do).I'd be happy to send you/post up a screen shot of me using Xcode on my PowerBook 12" if you'd like.
My PB is a day old and I've been on it for about 2 and a half hours and it's at 46%. That's with Ethernet in for internet (still waiting for Airport Express to arrive!!) and with Wireless and Bluetooth turned off. Brightness at about 2 dots below highest and just browsing and chatting. Plus iTunes Radio playing in the background.
So far so good.
So far so good.
cooknwitha said:
Awww... I remember those days. They're long gone now, though! I'm going to have to break down and buy a new battery. 2 hours isn't cutting it.
With the benefit of hindsight, would you say there was a better way you could have treated your battery? How long has this one lasted you?
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