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Acceptable Powerbook battery life?

D

dubbelhund

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 24, 2002
46
0
I just got a 1GHz Powerbook (and airport) a couple of weeks ago. According to the manual you are supposed to use the PB until the battery runs out then plug it in and charge it all the way in order to optimize the battery. When I got it I got carried away and plugged it in right away, which according to the manual you shouldn't do the first time you use it. Did I mess up the battery life? I have the energy saver settings set to prolong the battery life but I still only get about 2.5 hours! I am using the airport alot. Does that take alot of extra battery life?

2.5 hours battery life seems a little short compared to the advertised 5 hours!

:confused:
 
the advertised battery life is if you turn on processor cycling, dim the screen, and spray holy water on it. never believe marking he he

I get about 1.5 hours max on my 800, so you're doing pretty good :D
 
well

I get on average about 3 and 1/2 hours after doing what the manual said to do, what you had previously stated. It could be that i am doing less demanding things but i don't think i am... i squeezed almost 3 hours once while buring a cd, downloading an app, lisining to music and importing an imovie to idvd. :) if really needed better battery life and a more moble computer i would have gone with and ibook, or the new 12" albook.

p.s. you can but some nice external batteries for the macline that have up to a predicted 10 hours from mac related hardware sites. or buy another batt from the apple store near you :)

PowerBook G4 1ghz
 
Pismo

The Pismo gets the best battery life. My dads Pismo 500Mhz gets about 185 minutes per battery.

He has two, so when they are both in, its around 400 minutes. Or 6 1/2 hours
 
A trick i found when my iBook battery died (didnt help the battery, but a great tip ANYWAY) is to help you REALLLLLY drain the battery:
Boot into UNIX (Command-S on start-up i believe). UNIX lacks battery-management, so it will run until the battery is dead (including the 5% OSX will give itself to save memory contents).

One thing you'll note is that under UNIX your battery will last for a long time. My dying iBook battery got about 10 minutes of life in OSX (sitting idle), yet when i ran UNIX (with the top command open i'll note) it ran for 4 hours. It was cool, but the light of the screen kept me up, hey I got to sleep sometime.
 
Re: Pismo

Originally posted by MacAztec
The Pismo gets the best battery life. My dads Pismo 500Mhz gets about 185 minutes per battery.

He has two, so when they are both in, its around 400 minutes. Or 6 1/2 hours
Click to expand...

Maybe for a PowerBook, with a fresh battery and Jaguar my 500Mhz iBook can go for 4.5. At the apple store one of the 14.1" said it would run for 5.5 hours (i unplugged one for a second) and those iBooks are hot, running all day and what not.

Speaking of Apple stores, do they have iDVD3, iMovie3, iPhoto2, and Safari on their macs? I wounder....
 
Re: Re: Pismo

Originally posted by MasterX (OSiX)
Speaking of Apple stores, do they have iDVD3, iMovie3, iPhoto2, and Safari on their macs? I wounder....
Click to expand...

No, not yet...
I actually went to buy a 14" iBook yesterday... They had no idea that the price had changed... The only thing they knew, (which was a programed responce in thier heads I think) was

"we do not have any new powerbooks, they should be here in a few weeks"

I heard them say that about 6 times while I was there...

anyway, I was very upset when I went over to the computers and could not find Safari on one of them...

Slackers...
 
Originally posted by yamadataro


I was wondering about that too.
But found out that the battery for 17" uses newer chemical to achive the same amout of life as lesser PBs.

Apple says 5 hours on 15" and 4.5 hours on 17". So I assume it would be like 2 hours in heavy activity on 17?
Click to expand...
That seems fine.. you dim screen a bit, try not to use cpu too much and it should be okay.
 
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