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Safe to upgrade to Lion?

BreakGuy

BreakGuy

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 23, 2009
817
0
NZ, South Pacific
I installed Lion a when it came out. Wasn't happy with the battery drain issue that many experienced, myself included, and so downgraded back to Snow Leopard and have been using SL since.

I'm wondering if this issue has been resolved since and if it's worth upgrading again to Lion. I haven't heard any complaints recently regarding the battery drain issue nor have I heard any news of a fix.
 
I'm not sure if this is helpful or not, but I've been running Lion on a MPB since release and I haven't had any battery issues. Actually, other than two apps that aren't universal/intel, I haven't had any issues. I see no reason not to update.
 
grapes911 said:
I'm not sure if this is helpful or not, but I've been running Lion on a MPB since release and I haven't had any battery issues. Actually, other than two apps that aren't universal/intel, I haven't had any issues. I see no reason not to update.
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From what I can gather it seemed to be affecting only some users. On SL I can get upwards of 10 - 12 hours out of my battery. When I was running Lion, doing the same tasks I was getting 4 hours max.
 
Hook'Em2006 said:
I never had an issues with Lion and battery drain. I wouldn't see why you couldn't upgrade.
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I'm not saying I can't. I'm saying it's inconvenient when on SL I can get upwards of 10 - 12 hours out of my battery as opposed to Lion when doing the same tasks I was getting 4 hours max.

I'm just seeking an answer to whether or not this issue has been resolved as others were being affected in the same way.
 
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BreakGuy said:
I'm not saying I can't. I'm saying it's inconvenient when on SL I can get upwards of 10 - 12 hours out of my battery as opposed to Lion when doing the same tasks I was getting 4 hours max.

I'm just seeking an answer to whether or not this issue has been resolved as others were being affected in the same way.
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Uh 10-12 hours battery life??? No offense but I find that quite hard to believe seeing as the MBP has never been rated over 10 hours. In fact the 2010 13" MBP was rated "up to" 10 hours and real life use barely ever gets over 8 hours for most people.

In terms of you getting only 4 hours battery life in Lion you most likely need to do an SMC reset. Most people that upgraded to Lion ended up doing this and their originally rated battery life was restored.
 
BreakGuy said:
Web browsing using W-Fi, word processing, emails etc. Just the standard, nothing too spectacular.
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I was getting 10ish hrs too with 10.6.8, with 10.7.0 I got maybe 5 even after an SMC reset and fresh install...10.7.2 I'm back over 8..

@Joos24 just because apple doesn't say something is possible doesn't mean it isn't..you really can run quite light 2 bars of screen brightness..underclocking cpu's, blocking flash and adds etc.
 
GermanyChris said:
@Joos24 just because apple doesn't say something is possible doesn't mean it isn't..you really can run quite light 2 bars of screen brightness..underclocking cpu's, blocking flash and adds etc.
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You're right, and I was with you up until the underclocking example. That's not something most people do and changing clock cycles (from what I understand) can only be done in Windows so that argument doesn't count whatsoever.

Still 2 bars of brightness is not real world for most people unless they work only in the dark. Also along with following many people on this very forum I happen to have a 15" MBP that was rated 8-9 hours. I've never gotten more than 7 hours in Snow Leopard or Lion with light surfing and nominal screen brightness.
 
Joos24 said:
You're right, and I was with you up until the underclocking example. That's not something most people do and changing clock cycles (from what I understand) can only be done in Windows so that argument doesn't count whatsoever.

Still 2 bars of brightness is not real world for most people unless they work only in the dark. Also along with following many people on this very forum I happen to have a 15" MBP that was rated 8-9 hours. I've never gotten more than 7 hours in Snow Leopard or Lion with light surfing and nominal screen brightness.
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You can underclock/undervolt in OSX and I use 2 bars of brightness while on the battery always.
 
I upgrade to Lion shortly after is was introduced. I did noticed lower batter life but not enough to worry about switching back to SL. I have had no other issues.
 
GermanyChris said:
You can underclock/undervolt in OSX and I use 2 bars of brightness while on the battery always.
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I gotcha but you're not hearing me. I said that underclocking, overclocking, undervolting or any of this nonsense is generally something only the usual geek would do, it's not common practice for the average user, neither is setting the brightness at 2 bars. Your argument is failing here.
 
BreakGuy said:
I'm not saying I can't. I'm saying it's inconvenient when on SL I can get upwards of 10 - 12 hours out of my battery as opposed to Lion when doing the same tasks I was getting 4 hours max.

I'm just seeking an answer to whether or not this issue has been resolved as others were being affected in the same way.
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I typically get about 6-10 hours depending on usage. If i am just doing the usual word, email, internets and music then getting 8-9 is pretty typical for me.
 
you brought up the average user..

the original argument is that you can't get more than the apple says..

I just said you can and provided examples, then you came up with the average user can't do those things and that you can only under volt via Windows..

You can still under volt in Lion and with core i whatever processors on a app by app basis...

I'm not going to argue the average user simply because I don't know what an average user is and what they do?

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BreakGuy said:
So the answer to my question being has the battery drain issue affecting some users with Lion been resolved?
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Yes my battery came back with .2 at which time I switched back..
 
GermanyChris said:
you brought up the average user..

the original argument is that you can't get more than the apple says..



You can still under volt in Lion and with core i whatever processors on a app by app basis...
Click to expand...

The "average user" (which is most people) represents more than 90% of the computing world.
Still I find it hard to believe the OP was getting 10-12 hours in SL unless he was only using his MBP to play music through iTunes with the screen completely off and nothing else running including wireless. I do have experience in the matter, I had a 13"MBP rated at up to 10 hours and I currently hold a 15" MBP rated at 8-9 hours. Just sayin', and I'll close it at that.
 
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