5.5 Hour Battery!

[Aliquis]

And Pentium is rumored to have a dual core M chip around Jan. (No this is not hype from the dual core Towers Apple released) The news was being circulated before the towers were even announced, which could be very cool for Apple. Potential applications would be not just a G5 type or equiv chip in the powerbook line, but a dual pentium M chip in those powerbooks. Now that will be friggin' amazing if it happens.

2006 is going to be an awesome year for Apple.

 

[Will Cheyney]

When I first got my TiBook (with OS 9) in 2000/2001 the battery did last the stated 5 hours. As soon as OS X was released though, the battery life dropped to about 3... Haha. Now the battery is old and lasts for no longer than 2 hours if I'm lucky

My girlfriends iBook battery however is brilliant! She frequently gets ~5 hours usage when out and about.

 

[dblissmn]

There's nothing new about the battery in the latest 15 and 17 inch books. What's new is the power management. The processor clocks down to divide-by-four if your workload is light enough -- i.e., not only do you get 833MHz (divide-by-two) but also 417MHz. This is all done automatically. I suspect the DDR2 memory is probably a bit lower in voltage as well.

UPDATE -- yes, it turns out there is something new about the battery in the 15 inch model only. The calibration procedure in the manual is very different. No change though on the 17 inch.

 

[dubbz]

The 1.5 GHz Pentium-M machines are pretty impressive for the combination of power and weight and battery life. They're still thick and poorly designed as well but the Windows thing is the only thing that killed the deal for me.

The ThinkPad Z60m (9-cell version), powered by a 2GHz P-M, runs for ~7h.

That's pretty impressive, IMO. Plus you can remove the optical drive and put a battery in there instead, adding another hour or so.

 

[bigandy]

And I want to apparate from Istanbul to New York in a second. And I want birds to sing BonJovi, and cats Guns N' Roses.

aah, yes, birds singing bon jovi. yet another reason to take your shotgun and go hunting..

 

[poolin1243]

darn...i wish there was a higher capacity battery available for my pb 1.5ghz...having to lug around 2 batts is not cool all the time...

 

[Jay42]

5:30 with AP off, BT off, screen at minimum plus blacking it out when not in use (biggest battery saver, blacking the screen)
4:30 with AP on, BT off, screen at 1/3 to 2/3
4:00 when playing a game
3:45 with AP on, screen at 3/4, and a game
3:30 with AP on, BT on, screen at near-max

Are those real world times? Sometimes I think even the menu bar exaggerates estimated battery time.

 

[Mechcozmo]

Are those real world times? Sometimes I think even the menu bar exaggerates estimated battery time.

The menu bar is based on current power usage. It has always been accurate for me down to 0% (auto-sleep). So if you go from no AP/BT and only Word to AP and BT and FCP 5 doing a complex render at max. power usage, it will drop the menu bar quickly.

I calibrate my battery every 3 months, too. That helps a bit.

But sometimes upon waking from sleep I get 242:38 displayed in the bar, depending on current charge that number may change.

 

[Wombert]

I believe the battery is the same as the old one... still 50Wh, right?