Battery Indicator

[kinsale]

I picked up a new Macbook Pro 13 inch today. I brought it home and everything appears fine. I charged it until the indicator said charged. I then unplugged it. I set the battery indicator to read time left. At first it said 5 hours then 9 hours then back to 5 again. It's now saying 7:56 hours.

Should I be concerned at this point? It's meant to be a 10 hour battery. I can understand less than 10 hours but why is it jumping around so much?
Any ideas??
Now it says 7:28

 

[celticpride678]

Reset your SMC. It's just a bit inaccurate, but it should get better.

 

[alust2013]

It is just an estimate based on current settings (backlight, keyboard, etc) and usage of resources, so if you are using more processor, it will go down, etc. It's basically how long the battery would last at the same usage as when it was calculated.

 

[Hisdem]

Mine does the same thing, but I just assumed it was due to constant change in applications running. If I let it on a single app for about 30 secs it gets stable.

 

[kinsale]

I put it back to percentage

 

[alust2013]

I put it back to percentage

Haha, excellent solution. That's how I have had mine since I got it.

 

[aeboi]

the estimated time will always jump around depending on cpu load and what you're doing at that moment, let it be watching a flash video or browsing craigslist

I've never gotten 10 hours, that's probably possible with like 10% brightness and the lowest bandwidth page

 

[chris2k5]

With keyboard lights off and 1 bar of brightness while reading a forum on Safari, I get 10:24 at 95% battery charge.

So they aren't lying when its 10 hours.

 

[Patrick J]

With keyboard lights off and 1 bar of brightness while reading a forum on Safari, I get 10:24 at 95% battery charge.

So they aren't lying when its 10 hours.

Yeh, 1bar of brightness is really useful.

In that case, if all you want to do is use Safari, I would get an iPad. And use it with decent screen brightness.

 

[Hisdem]

Yeh, 1bar of brightness is really useful.

In that case, if all you want to do is use Safari, I would get an iPad. And use it with decent screen brightness.

Not quite... Depending on the environment you're on 1 bar is more than enough. I frequently use it with 1-2 bars at night. And on a dark presentation room it works out just fine too.

 

[Patrick J]

Not quite... Depending on the environment you're on 1 bar is more than enough. I frequently use it with 1-2 bars at night. And on a dark presentation room it works out just fine too.

Sure, at night I also use 2-4 bars. On an unrelated note, I also use Flux - it makes the temperature of your computer's display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day.

However, during the day, specially with the glossy hi-reflection displays in the new Macbooks, you need to pump up the display to counteract the glare - although this isn't necessary to the same degree if you have a matte display.

So anything under 10 bars makes it hard to see.

 

[TrojanX]

As many have suggested, setting it to precentage will give you a more stable reading seeing as how the time left function varies highly on CPU load but, I have heard no one say to calibrate you battery.

Calibrating you battery is not only a good idea for when you first get you MB to ensure accurate readings, but is just generally a good idea and very simple to do. Although, keep in mind, it will not solve you time left function because it varies on what you are doing. I just though I would offer it as a suggestion. To calibrate you battery simply follow these steps:

1. Power down you computer( not merely sleep)
2. plug the Magsafe in and leave it to charge until it is full
3. Turn it on (still plugged in) and run it for 2 hours(approx)
4. Unplug the computer and run it untill it dies (aka force sleep)
5. let it sleep for a min of 5 hours (or better over night)

You should do this every few months or so.

 

[Patrick J]

As many have suggested, setting it to precentage will give you a more stable reading seeing as how the time left function varies highly on CPU load but, I have heard no one say to calibrate you battery.

I just keep it to the icon, for two reasons.

1- If I have it showing time left/percentage, I am constantly looking away from my work (Word, Pages, or Numbers) and checking how much is left. I noticed that it got into such a reflex that every 10 seconds or so I was flicking my eyes into the top right corner.

2 - Showing the time left provoked a reflex. Showing the percentage isn't particularly useful, as to deduce how much time you are left you must do some mental calculations, which may or may not be right.

So, I just have the icon, and when I need to know how much time is left, I just click on the icon.