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2013 11" Battery Life Thread (real world)

erstylin said:
I am having still same problems with my battery on 13inch, i7/512/8gb, 6 cycles in and still can't get above 7 hours, and all I use is chrome and constantly checking the activity monitor. i'm seeing ppl with 13 hours time remaining, i'm real jealous. :mad:
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Try and see if better numbers using only Safari. Chrome uses more resources and therefore more battery.
 
will try

I will try that, although it says chrome is using significant power, it rarely exceed 15-20% on the activity monitor. Chrome is a superior browser, but I'll make the switch to safari and see if it improves battery. :confused:
 
erstylin said:
I will try that, although it says chrome is using significant power, it rarely exceed 15-20% on the activity monitor. Chrome is a superior browser, but I'll make the switch to safari and see if it improves battery. :confused:
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Keep us posted on your results! Should be interesting.
 
Well guys - last Wednesday 3AM CST - (yes I am awake that late most of the times as i am $ hungry & have a million tasks at hand) - after hearing constant rants - bashings - bad experiences of 2 lads here with i7 - I bought the 11"/i5/8GB/512 & was 140$ away only from making it an ultimate 11" 2013 Mac air !

So now all of a sudden we have People praising & talking about big engines (big processor) better processor - faster processor - cooler all the time except CPU intensive tasks (but that's obvious) and what not !

So it seems all this fiasco about i7 has been PREETY MISLEADING :-( & now we sit down with an i5 - I am not saying its a BAd option but I was out to buy a Veyron & ended up with an F430 because the so called reviews declared i7 to be a burning furnace only good for cooking eggs even under bare minimum normal use

:-(
 
johnjey said:
Well guys - last Wednesday 3AM CST - (yes I am awake that late most of the times as i am $ hungry & have a million tasks at hand) - after hearing constant rants - bashings - bad experiences of 2 lads here with i7 - I bought the 11"/i5/8GB/512 & was 140$ away only from making it an ultimate 11" 2013 Mac air !

So now all of a sudden we have People praising & talking about big engines (big processor) better processor - faster processor - cooler all the time except CPU intensive tasks (but that's obvious) and what not !

So it seems all this fiasco about i7 has been PREETY MISLEADING :-( & now we sit down with an i5 - I am not saying its a BAd option but I was out to buy a Veyron & ended up with an F430 because the so called reviews declared i7 to be a burning furnace only good for cooking eggs even under bare minimum normal use

:-(
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Buy both i5 and i7, alternate using them and return the one you aren't happy with.
 
johnjey said:
Well guys - last Wednesday 3AM CST - (yes I am awake that late most of the times as i am $ hungry & have a million tasks at hand) - after hearing constant rants - bashings - bad experiences of 2 lads here with i7 - I bought the 11"/i5/8GB/512 & was 140$ away only from making it an ultimate 11" 2013 Mac air !

So now all of a sudden we have People praising & talking about big engines (big processor) better processor - faster processor - cooler all the time except CPU intensive tasks (but that's obvious) and what not !

So it seems all this fiasco about i7 has been PREETY MISLEADING :-( & now we sit down with an i5 - I am not saying its a BAd option but I was out to buy a Veyron & ended up with an F430 because the so called reviews declared i7 to be a burning furnace only good for cooking eggs even under bare minimum normal use

:-(
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I'm sorry to say johnjey, but there was never anything incredibly decisive. We've mostly really started to know in the past couple of days and some people are still testing on their own.

Be happy with what you have or go out and exchange it. No biggy.
 
Last test: 5 hours of video (no hd), wifi off.

If I walk away from the Macbook Air with with safari open (1 tab) and screen bright 50-60& it gives 8-9 hours of battery.

Any thoughts? Is it normal? Cause it is driving me crazy, I sold my 2011 11" Air to buy this one because of the battery life and it has been an awful move so far.
 
flawless11 said:
Last test: 5 hours of video (no hd), wifi off.

If I walk away from the Macbook Air with with safari open (1 tab) and screen bright 50-60& it gives 8-9 hours of battery.

Any thoughts? Is it normal? Cause it is driving me crazy, I sold my 2011 11" Air to buy this one because of the battery life and it has been an awful move so far.
Click to expand...

U have an i7 - 11 ?
 
Mine is hot enough to make me want to post this.

Transmission and Safari and it's hot enough for me to not want to put my hand on the keyboard unless I really have to.
 
johnjey said:
Well guys - last Wednesday 3AM CST - (yes I am awake that late most of the times as i am $ hungry & have a million tasks at hand) - after hearing constant rants - bashings - bad experiences of 2 lads here with i7 - I bought the 11"/i5/8GB/512 & was 140$ away only from making it an ultimate 11" 2013 Mac air !

So now all of a sudden we have People praising & talking about big engines (big processor) better processor - faster processor - cooler all the time except CPU intensive tasks (but that's obvious) and what not !

So it seems all this fiasco about i7 has been PREETY MISLEADING :-( & now we sit down with an i5 - I am not saying its a BAd option but I was out to buy a Veyron & ended up with an F430 because the so called reviews declared i7 to be a burning furnace only good for cooking eggs even under bare minimum normal use

:-(
Click to expand...

i5 and i7 have the same Watt number, how could they be significantly different in power consumption?
 
returning it

MBA 13 in ultimate config with sucky battery life, tried everything i could (activity monitor, battery health, os x 10.9, resetting SMC, re-calibrate battery). Booting up with 100% battery does not show more than 8 hours. Light browsing gives me 7 hours, a far cry from the 12 hours advertised. Given previous posts here, I am assuming a defect in this particular computer but I am sad to have waited so long and paid so much for this sub-par battery life.

I am going to apple next week to return it or ask them to fedex me a new one.

:rolleyes:
 
erstylin said:
MBA 13 in ultimate config with sucky battery life, tried everything i could (activity monitor, battery health, os x 10.9, resetting SMC, re-calibrate battery). Booting up with 100% battery does not show more than 8 hours. Light browsing gives me 7 hours, a far cry from the 12 hours advertised. Given previous posts here, I am assuming a defect in this particular computer but I am sad to have waited so long and paid so much for this sub-par battery life.

I am going to apple next week to return it or ask them to fedex me a new one.

:rolleyes:
Click to expand...
OK, a comment to you and all of the people posting on this forum: please excuse me if I didn't read every single post in this long thread, but did anyone let the computer stabilize for a few days before doing these tests of battery life? Why do I ask? mdworker and the spotlight indexer will work overtime for a day or so in the background using lots of CPU life and power, especially if you transferred a lot of data to your 512 or 256 MB SSD. Anyone who is testing battery life "right out of the box" is likely to be disappointed, unless there is nothing on their machine. Sorry if this is a repeat of prior advice, but hope this helps. I wouldn't trust any of these tests for at least 4-5 days of using the machine. Why does PC Mag et al get such great battery life right out of the box? They have a very specific testing configuration that they use which does not trigger spotlight.
 
erstylin said:
MBA 13 in ultimate config with sucky battery life, tried everything i could (activity monitor, battery health, os x 10.9, resetting SMC, re-calibrate battery). Booting up with 100% battery does not show more than 8 hours. Light browsing gives me 7 hours, a far cry from the 12 hours advertised. Given previous posts here, I am assuming a defect in this particular computer but I am sad to have waited so long and paid so much for this sub-par battery life.

I am going to apple next week to return it or ask them to fedex me a new one.

:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

That makes us two of a kind, I totally understand what you are thinking right now.

Could anyone give some numbers about video (no HD) playing? Just to compare to my previous post (slightly less than 5 hours timed with my iPad).
 
curtoise said:
You have not charged the laptop and that's very cool but can you tell how much you've used the Air? You can go 30 days on stand by too...
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I lost count after two hours. Is there any way for the machine to tell you?

I haven't been using it all day, but I feel like it must be at least 7 hours so far.
 
su0301 said:
i5 and i7 have the same Watt number, how could they be significantly different in power consumption?
Click to expand...

It's not a "Watt number", it is TDP = Thermal Design Power.

A TDP of say 20 Watt means: "Intel to Apple: You must design your computer so that it doesn't melt down if the CPU uses 20 Watt, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week". It doesn't use 20 Watt all the time. Just as your 100 horse power car will drive along quite happily using less than 10 horse powers most of the time.

The i7 is the more powerful processor. If you don't use the procesors much, it doesn't make any difference; i7 and i5 use the some power to do the same work. But if you press your computer hard, then the i7 can do the work in shorter time. It will use the same energy as the i5 for the same work, but because it does the work quicker, it removes the same charge from the battery in shorter time, so the battery runs down quicker, and the processor gets hotter. But that's because you get more work done, so you wouldn't really complain. You'd rather have the job done in 9 hours and battery empty after 9 hours, than taking 12 hours and battery lasting 12 hours.
 
musika said:
I lost count after two hours. Is there any way for the machine to tell you?

I haven't been using it all day, but I feel like it must be at least 7 hours so far.
Click to expand...

Lost count here too, started on battery on Friday, went out of town and came back today Sunday at noon with 52% left/
 
gnasher729 said:
But that's because you get more work done, so you wouldn't really complain. You'd rather have the job done in 9 hours and battery empty after 9 hours, than taking 12 hours and battery lasting 12 hours.
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Thanks for the explanation.

To be fair though that analogy isn't always accurate with computers. If you are web browsing you aren't trying to complete a task. You are trying to engage in an activity for as long as you possibly can so the idea of getting the same amount of work done in a given amount of time is irrelevant for many of the tasks that computers are used for.

Still can't decide on i5 vs i7 sigh...
 
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