21 day old MBP i5 - woeful battery life, being returned to shop

[breatheasy]

Do any of you have the hi-res screen? perhaps that affects the battery life somewhat.

My Hi-res 2.4 15" i5 amperage, with just this open at half brightness with the backlit keyboard off is -1044.

I've never had the battery indicator tell me that I will get more than 7 hours.

 

[anthias]

I know I'm not contributing much or anything but I really think Apple should put the "Switch between the two GPUs option manually" option again. I like the idea of being able to change it. As long as they do that without you needing to log out it should be fine.

I never EVER use the 9600 M GT on the battery. I like 4:30 hours not 3:30 plus a hotter computer.

Well.. I have installed gfxcardstatus, so now I can swap between Intel and Nvidia, and also see what card is in use on auto.


And, yes I do have a HR screen. Also after a calibration I now have 6680mAh instead of original 6900mAh, and the one with the same computer that have 7400mAh!

oh well... 3hours of full HD playing on battery with full brightness, keyboard light and usb things connected is ok.

 

[Azathoth]

Do any of you have the hi-res screen? perhaps that affects the battery life somewhat.

My Hi-res 2.4 15" i5 amperage, with just this open at half brightness with the backlit keyboard off is -1044.

I've never had the battery indicator tell me that I will get more than 7 hours.

I cringe every time I hear the term 'amperage' - current consumption is a much better term (IMO), but that aside, I have a 2.4 i5 HR AG 15", with little to no activity, screen on 1 dot, Wifi, no BT, intel gfx, I get 930mA which would give about 7 hours.

Same settings and 7/15 brightness gives around 1070mA, (a bit under 7 hours). But in practice 7/15 brightness is impossible to use in an office.
Having said that, I still don't see how Apple gets 8-9 hours on their test - as I'm running with the same nominal setup (light wireless productivity, processor usage <10%.) and no chance of getting the advertised time.


15/15 brightness results in about 1300mA which would be 5.5hours of usage.

I wish that the battery tests were performed at a standard screen brightness level, say 200cd/m2 - as each panel that Apple uses for their MBP has a different brightness...

 

[Kavier]

Do any of you have the hi-res screen? perhaps that affects the battery life somewhat.

My Hi-res 2.4 15" i5 amperage, with just this open at half brightness with the backlit keyboard off is -1044.

I've never had the battery indicator tell me that I will get more than 7 hours.

I have a hi-res AG, and my battery life is amazing so far (usually 6 or 7 hrs. per charge though I have gotten 8 doing only web browsing)! The longest time I've gotten from the indicator is 7:46, but I am not sure how good of an estimate the indicator really is as its battery life estimates are always changing depending on what you're running and what websites you're on.

 

[mrsir2009]

4 hours ain't much with 50% screen and no keyboard lighting. When I'm doing 5+ tab web browsing my 13" MacBook Pro lasts around 5 hours with screen on full and keyboard on full Thats pretty good!

 

[tflournoy95]

In either case there should be a limit to how many times a customer can return products.

there definitely should not. if i were to pay 1500 bucks for a laptop and it didnt have reasonable battery life i would keep taking it back till i got one that did. if there is a fault with a product that is supposed to be top of the line and i dont like it i will get a new one. anyone with a brain would think this way.

 

[kazmac]

some good tips here thanks

My new 13" MBP averages about 8 hours with the backlit keyboard on. I've been shutting off my Airport connection and putting the machine to sleep when I don't use it. Calibrating has helped too.

Next time, I'll shut off the backlight on the keyboard and see if I get some additional time out the machine.

I'm just getting my feet wet for the barrage of school-work coming my way late summer so I have no complaints about 8 hours of battery life

Thanks for tips about turning off the backlit keyboard etc.

 

[MeWants]

What are you guys seeing as battery current when your i5/i7 is idle?

Put display to 50% brightness, close all apps
Unplug Magsafe
Open System Profiler & navigate to the Power page
Look at the Amperage figure
Watch it for a couple of minutes, pressing ctrl-R every now and then to refresh
What's the average figure?

For my 13" C2D the idle figure is about -740 mA. That ties in perfectly with the advertised 7 hour battery life (740 mA * 7 hours = 5180 mAhr, about the capacity of the battery)

You guys with 4 hours battery, what is your idle Amperage figure?

Just did that. My i5 average is about 1460 mA and will give me 4hours and 30mins. This is with all applications shut, internet though ethernet, only safari open, display at 50% with no backlit keyboard.

Should I be sad?

Edit: Just when I got done writing this it dropped down to 847 mA and will give me 7 hours and 17 minutes of battery time.

 

[btrav13]

I use my 15inch i7 at work to download movies. I can go through a whole work day without it being on the charger most times...that's with keyboard lights off and screen down to only 1 dot of brightness.