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I thought companies figured out that putting round batteries in a rectangular space was inefficient years ago?

Yes, Apple introduced prismatic (rectangular) batteries in the first PowerBook G4 17".

This is not news....
 
It's not dumb. It's a standardized test across many different models. 8 hours might not mean 8 hours for you, but it's 58% more than the previous MBP. Were you getting only 3.5 hours on your old MBP for your usage? This one will give you 5.5 hours (58% more).

arn

That's OK Arn, I'll standby my opinion. You have yours and I have mine. To me it's dumb due to all the variables and difference usages from various people.

Different strokes for different folks!

If one gets more hours like I said Great, so what's your problem?
 
13" MacBook Pro

I bought the new 13" MacBook Pro on Thursday. Stats: 2.53GHz, 4GB RAM, 200GB 7200 RPM (switched from old MacBook, which was an upgrade from the original 60GB).

I bought the base config of high end 13" model, then switch my 7200 RPM drive in. I can't believe they even still sell 5400 RPM drive with their Pro line.

This is a really beautiful machine, I love it.

As for a battery: when I first turned it on to play with it before switching hard drives it read 6+ hours of battery. Since then I get an average of 4 hours of battery under my normal web usage. I'm very disappointed by that. The only reason for this I can see is I keep the screen brightness up all the way up and I switched the default hard drive for a faster, perhaps less efficient drive. System Profiler tell me my drive is "Hitachi HTS722020K9SA00" incase anyone wants to know. I believe I bought is about 1-2 years ago.

I can run bench mark tests, what's the current best app for this?
 
I've tried and failed -you cannot get more than 3hrs. Apple lies when they say 5 hr - they have invented a good way to get away with it ;)

Based on some of the responses if AnandTech is saying 8hrs it means with the new MBPs instead of 3 hrs you will get may be 4hrs or 5 if you are lucky.


ic. Well, I do know you discount half off any advertised battery life.

But I just thought AnandTech actually did real-life testings and the charts reflected that.

@Schtumple
Are you saying cocoabattery would indicate a different battery life?
 
That's awesome. That'll last for most flights within the USA.

My late 2007 Macbook is barely a quarter of that time when playing a DVD. On a long road trip that's a bummer.
 
This massive increase in battery life is clearly worth not being able to change it. It's like having 2 batteries already. Also, the way these things are designed, you'll probably change your computer before needing to take Apple up on their offer to change the battery for you.

What other 15" at this size/weight at the same pricepoint has this kind of battery life? Most cheap 15" machines have 3 hours of battery life, maybe 4 hours.
 
ic. Well, I do know you discount half off any advertised battery life.

But I just thought AnandTech actually did real-life testings and the charts reflected that.

@Schtumple
Are you saying cocoabattery would indicate a different battery life?

It will tell your battery health as a percentage, which might explain poor performance.
 
As for a battery: when I first turned it on to play with it before switching hard drives it read 6+ hours of battery.

It is not that likely. You should try dimming at least a little the screen display. That is going to be one of the largest uses of speed.

The other is going to be flash. For ads and on screen video. The two of those things will drain an amazing amount of battery life, and it can happen on screens that you don't even see. There are all sorts of flash and ajax rich sites that use all sorts of battery life that are popunder sites so you aren't even really aware that this is happening.

Flash is getting some love in the hardware acceleration arena, especially on Nvidia stuff. So hopefully that will reduce background flash stuff. The other recommendation is keep your windows closed, to increase battery life.
 
That's awesome. That'll last for most flights within the USA.

My late 2007 Macbook is barely a quarter of that time when playing a DVD. On a long road trip that's a bummer.

On a long road trip you should have an inverter for the car.

But it will get even better, under snowleapord one of the dramatic power increases will come from a hardware assisted codec for DVD playback. This should result in pretty dramatic power savings if reports are correct.
 
http://www.macpolls.com/?poll_id=571

So like 8% of laptop owners here polled in 2008 actually had a spare battery and use them

arn

Which is valid. The next question would be how many have 3 batteries. Because 2 batteries are going to largely be solved by the current better batteries. And then would you be better with an external power system that should give you DRAMATIC amounts of extra power, and is easier to manage than an extra battery.

So most of these peoples problems are actually acutely solved by the new solution, most people will simply have a better experience, and a small crowd may get forced into a better solution.

WIN-WIN-WIN.
 
I have a late 2008 15" MBP.

I get about 2.5 - 3.0 hours, medium brightness, surfing the web.

This chart says 5 hours. What is wrong with my computer?

Surfing Porn? Or other video. Seriously, flash for ads, or in backgrounds or in video, HAMMER the processor, more than anything most anybody does.
 
Hmm Don't see my powerbook g4 with 9 minutes battery life on that list!

There is no point buying a new battery for me as a new one is half the value of the machine!

My old g4 easily got 5 hours when it was new. That was 8 years ago. I'm not that impressed. My buddies G3 could take 2 batteries and go 10 hours. So the bug deal is?
 
As much as I am stunned from the performance results of the battery, I am also surprised at how much a hit it takes with flash. As soon as I get the new MBP 15", I'm going to install click to flash. I can see why apple is so resistent to flash on the iPhone.
 
new laptop battery replacement

these batteries need to be replaced much less than previous generations according to apple

And when you do need to I'm sure there will be plenty of easy to follow guides online.

Because the hardest part of changing a battery in an iPod/iPhone has been taking the case apart Apple is making that part easy with the last gen of Intel MacBook Pros. They have 10-12 screws to remove to change memory, hard drive, optical drive &/or non-user-replacable battery. The problem will more be whether a 3rd party will produce a suitable battery for replacement. With the iPod/iPhone history we know that Apple will not make batteries available.

Has anybody had the back off of their 13", 15" or 17" Mac laptop with the uncased battery. How hard does changing the battery look? Does Apple have a paper or other type of seal on the battery? As Apple claims not to waste space with this new battery, I would not think that thinks will be buried under some second cover.
 
I don't know whether the excellent battery life has anything to do with this or not, but are all you 15" MacBook Pro users equally happy with a SATA connection speed of 1.5 Gbit?

ie: SATA I?
The 17" has SATA II - 3 Gbit.

Maybe the two things are connected, maybe not, but it's very worrying that this wonderful 'new' Apple is doing this, no?

IS THIS TRUE?? :eek::eek::eek:

This is a big deal for performance users as many MLC SSDs on the market can easily eclipse the 150MB* maximum that SATA I provides. The Intel X25M is far faster than SATAI, and even the outstanding 120GB OCZ Vertex ($325) can easily sustain 200-225MB/sec reads, and both SSDs and traditional harddrives can have short-lived, incredibly high burst speeds because they have ~16-128MB of DRAM cache.

What is the history of this issue? Have any recent Macbooks or Macbook Pros not used SATA II? Did Apple actually DOWNGRADE the 15" MB Pro to SATA I from SATA II?

Either way, that is absolutely pathetic for a $2000 "Pro" laptop to use SATA I and not be able to take full advantage of an SSD drive.


----------
*SATA I's signaling rate is 1.5Gbps, but it has 20% overhead from 8b/10b error correction, equaling 150MB/sec in max transfer rate.
 
The old could make 5 years

Maybe monetarily.

I think users like how simple it is to buy a new battery and pop it in themselves, as opposed to handing it over to a sales person for....and this is the other issue...does anyone know how long it takes to replace these? I had one rep tell me 'a few days' and another one at a different store say 'a few minutes'.

If you have to give up your computer for a few days to replace a battery that in the past has been a 2 minute ordeal on your desk, that isn't the same price, and it's ridiculous. However if it is true that they can be replaced in a matter of minutes at the store it seems reasonable, especially since they need to be replaced MUCH less often.

But my battery in my 17" PowerBook is nearly 5 years old now & still does a good job of holding its charge.
 
I can confirm the battery is amazing easily get 6-8 hours (closer to 8) each time I have used it unplugged. Its a really nice luxury to have available and makes the MK2 Unibodies all the more desirable. Not to mention the overall build quality is superior....

ShadoW
 
IS THIS TRUE?? :eek::eek::eek:

This is a big deal for performance users as many MLC SSDs on the market can easily eclipse the 150MB* maximum that SATA I provides. The Intel X25M is far faster than SATAI, and even the outstanding 120GB OCZ Vertex ($325) can easily sustain 200-225MB/sec reads, and both SSDs and traditional harddrives can have short-lived, incredibly high burst speeds because they have ~16-128MB of DRAM cache.

What is the history of this issue? Have any recent Macbooks or Macbook Pros not used SATA II? Did Apple actually DOWNGRADE the 15" MB Pro to SATA I from SATA II?

Either way, that is absolutely pathetic for a $2000 "Pro" laptop to use SATA I and not be able to take full advantage of an SSD drive.


----------
*SATA I's signaling rate is 1.5Gbps, but it has 20% overhead from 8b/10b error correction, equaling 150MB/sec in max transfer rate.

It's definitely true. Whether it was intentional or not, or whether it's even fixable is up for debate, but all new MBPs so far (except for the 17") have a 1.5 Gbit/s SATA connection. We've submitted it to MacRumors and all other major tech sites but no one wants to run the story.
 
Can we see more battery life in the Macbook Air line too, please? I love my air but the battery life is no where near that long. Oh well.
 
You can go here...
http://www.batterygeek.net/Batterygeek_net_MacBook_MacBook_Pro_Battery_Packs_s/78.htm

The rest of us customers, will glorify in our new found battery life. As a matter of fact, there is a likely huge net gain of customers to longer and more sufficient battery life, than those that will juggle batteries in and out of the machine, (because there is no external charger), rather than use this, which is what they should have been using in the first place, if this was a problem for you, replaceable battery or not.

Simply, for people that replaced their battery ONCE during a session, they won't have two, if they did it twice, they can get the above device, and it will provide enough battery life as if they had to do replace the battery 4 times in a session before.

Simply you are complaining to complain. Your complaint really makes no sense, and no I really do not want a lesser computer to solve your truly non-existent problem.

Thanks for the link, that sounds like a much better option than springing for a 2nd battery. Of course, I love how they don't include the cable that actually connects to the MB/MBP - so add $20 to whatever price it is. :rolleyes:

That said, I'll be grabbing one of these.
 
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