Battery life based on real world usage (17" UMBP)

[ayasin]

I took my laptop out to work with someone at a restaurant today. At the end of a 3 hour work session my battery still had 70% juice left. During this time, I was typing, compiling code in XCode and running the iPhone simulator almost constantly (screen never turned off). I also had Adium running and Twitterific was pulling new tweets every 3 min (on wifi). At that rate of decay the battery would last me TEN HOURS. Switching to time from % display also indicated 7 hrs remaining. I keep my screen fairly dim which I think made a lot of difference (2-3 dots). I'll do some more tests but based on this experience I'm very very satisfied with the battery even if I can't swap it out. Anyone else have real world experiences they'd like to share?

EDIT: Fixed a typo (]/b] instead of [/b])

 

[drewsof07]

The battery is actually very easy to remove/replace based on the vids and pics I've seen from inside the new 17" Congrats!! My 15" is 3hrs with no wifi and screen dimmed all the way

 

[ayasin]

The battery is actually very easy to remove/replace based on the vids and pics I've seen from inside the new 17" Congrats!! My 15" is 3hrs with no wifi and screen dimmed all the way

I agree it's easy to replace, but I'd hardly call that "swappable". When I think of swappable I think 1 or 2 clips holding the thing in and it takes less than a minute to change it out.

 

[drewsof07]

I agree it's easy to replace, but I'd hardly call that "swappable". When I think of swappable I think 1 or 2 clips holding the thing in and it takes less than a minute to change it out.

Ohh ohh, no it's not swappable on the go, but it's not soldered to the logic board or anything and only requires a few screws to be removed (11 I think).

 

[mikekelley]

The battery life on this machine is certainly sick. I can pull 7 hours no problem, 8 and more if I dim below half brightness. I love it. I've been on the same charge since about 2pm (it's now 920pm) and I have one hour, 27 minutes remaining according to the calculator. I've just been browsing the internet off and on, and I've only closed it for periods of five or less minutes to move locations. Really awesome!

 

[ayeying]

At max brightness + wifi + Vista in virtual machine (boot camp) running installing programs and playing music @ 80% volume... I was able to pull off 4 hours on the 9400M. Not bad considering vista's index never turned off the hard drive.

If i'm just taking notes in class, 3 hours worth of class (system put to sleep when switching classes) and the battery was 80%. 1/2 brightness, no wifi or any processor intensive programs. Just Pages.app from iWork 09. 9400M video card.

I've put through 7 battery cycles already. I've only owned this system for 5 days lol.

 

[akbc]

The battery is actually very easy to remove/replace based on the vids and pics I've seen from inside the new 17" Congrats!! My 15" is 3hrs with no wifi and screen dimmed all the way

No Wi-Fi and screen dimmed all the way, my MBP gets 6:12 .
There must be something wrong with your unit, 3 hours is when I watch a movie with screen at 3-5 dots without Wi-Fi.

With Wi-Fi, web browsing and MSN and such, it lasts me about 4:45, which I really don't complain about

 

[dmmcintyre3]

That is great battery life. I wish they would use the square cells in a MacBook battery to reduce wasted space but it still removeable.

 

[Repo]

I've put through 7 battery cycles already. I've only owned this system for 5 days lol.

Nice. I look forward to testing out my new battery.

 

[DAMNiatx]

No Wi-Fi and screen dimmed all the way, my MBP gets 6:12 .
There must be something wrong with your unit, 3 hours is when I watch a movie with screen at 3-5 dots without Wi-Fi.

With Wi-Fi, web browsing and MSN and such, it lasts me about 4:45, which I really don't complain about

wow 6:12
hiks, how to do that bro ?, i get same like him....

 

[UltraNEO*]

I took my laptop out to work with someone at a restaurant today. At the end of a 3 hour work session my battery still had 70% juice left. During this time, I was typing, compiling code in XCode and running the iPhone simulator almost constantly (screen never turned off). I also had Adium running and Twitterific was pulling new tweets every 3 min (on wifi). At that rate of decay the battery would last me TEN HOURS. Switching to time from % display also indicated 7 hrs remaining. I keep my screen fairly dim which I think made a lot of difference (2-3 dots). I'll do some more tests but based on this experience I'm very very satisfied with the battery even if I can't swap it out. Anyone else have real world experiences they'd like to share?

EDIT: Fixed a typo (]/b] instead of [/b])

Sorry. I would hardly call that work! It's more like a little tinkering around.
Don't wanna sound offensive like, but non of what your doing is processor intensive.

Let's see someone filing a Battery usability report for editing and rendering something that's both CPU and GPU intensive.
Only then will the system's battery performance would be considered 'Impressive', if it anything lasts six or more hours.

 

[DHagan4755]

No punn intended, but I hope this battery technology trickles down the MacBook Pro line.

 

[duffyanneal]

.
Only then will the system's battery performance would be considered 'Impressive', if it anything lasts six or more hours.

Did you just pull that out of the air or is there something written in stone that defines what "Impressive" means? You would be hard pressed to find ANY 17" machine that can run much more than a couple of hours doing general tasks much less processor/GPU intensive work.

 

[Repo]

Did you just pull that out of the air or is there something written in stone that defines what "Impressive" means? You would be hard pressed to find ANY 17" machine that can run much more than a couple of hours doing general tasks much less processor/GPU intensive work.

im-ˈpre-siv (adjective) : making or tending to make a marked impression : having the power to excite attention, awe, or admiration <an impressive display of skill>

It isn't set in stone, but close enough. I agree with duffyanneal, however.

Definition credit.

 

[duffyanneal]

im-ˈpre-siv (adjective) : making or tending to make a marked impression : having the power to excite attention, awe, or admiration <an impressive display of skill>

It isn't set in stone, but close enough. I agree with duffyanneal, however.

Definition credit.

My point being that using the word impressive is subjective. I guess UltraNEO is not very excitable.

 

[Repo]

My point being that using the word impressive is subjective. I guess UltraNEO is not very excitable.

I guess he's not.

Just FYI, if someone never took the time to read this, Apple has this posted on their website referring to battery testing:

Testing conducted by Apple in December 2008 using preproduction 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo-based MacBook Pro (17-inch) units with a Better Battery Life setting. Battery life depends on configuration and use. See www.apple.com/batteries for more information. The wireless productivity test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing various websites and editing text in a word processing document with display brightness set to 50%.

You can find this at the bottom of this page.

 

[Quu]

Sorry. I would hardly call that work! It's more like a little tinkering around.
Don't wanna sound offensive like, but non of what your doing is processor intensive.

Let's see someone filing a Battery usability report for editing and rendering something that's both CPU and GPU intensive.
Only then will the system's battery performance would be considered 'Impressive', if it anything lasts six or more hours.

Pretty typical post by you really. You are very anti-new MacBook Pro.

The battery in the 17" is double the capacity of the one in the old 17" - So whatever people got with the old one, double it.

 

[ayasin]

Sorry. I would hardly call that work! It's more like a little tinkering around.
Don't wanna sound offensive like, but non of what your doing is processor intensive.

Let's see someone filing a Battery usability report for editing and rendering something that's both CPU and GPU intensive.
Only then will the system's battery performance would be considered 'Impressive', if it anything lasts six or more hours.

99% of people who own a mac do not do work that is constantly GPU + CPU intensive. As a devleoper using XCode (and other tools) to write, compile and test apps is what I do. Have you ever compiled a reasonably complex program and taken a look at CPU usage? As I said in my post, this is my real world usage and these numbers are great for me. If you're rendering the next Pixar movie then you're probably going to get significantly worse battery life than I will.

 

[ayasin]

I guess he's not.

Just FYI, if someone never took the time to read this, Apple has this posted on their website referring to battery testing:

You can find this at the bottom of this page.

Good points. The specs of my machine/test are:

2.93 GHz proc
7200 RPM drive
Brightness set to 2-3 dots
"Better battery life" selected in energy saver

 

[UltraNEO*]

Did you just pull that out of the air or is there something written in stone that defines what "Impressive" means? You would be hard pressed to find ANY 17" machine that can run much more than a couple of hours doing general tasks much less processor/GPU intensive work.

Yeah?? But there's a difference. In every other 17" machine, the user can 'swap' the battery on-the-go!! Personally, I would considered this more as 'embedded'.

99% of people who own a mac do not do work that is constantly GPU + CPU intensive.

Don't get me wrong dude, I'm dead happy you've gotten yourself a new laptop with long battery life and even more importantly, you're happy!!

I however, just like see how the battery performs under intense pressure. I know most don't do hardware intensive tasks on their systems... So don't worry. I'm not expecting you to conduct them personally.

 

[ayeying]

I however, just like see how the battery performs under intense pressure. I know most don't do hardware intensive tasks on their systems... So don't worry. I'm not expecting you to conduct them personally.

I run virtual machines on my system while on battery. I get ~3-3.5 Hours for intensive (installing programs, running openGL based within virtual machine) to ~4.5-6 hours doing minimal work.

The battery's "OK" under intense pressure but its better then my MacBook receiving ~1 hour doing the same tasks