Battery life on refurbished 2.4GHz 15" MBP? Is built in battery significantly better?

[ditzygrrrl]

Hello. I recently ordered this refurbished MBP off of the Apple website:

15.4-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display
2GB memory
2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT graphics processor; and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory
250GB hard drive
8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Built-in iSight camera
Illuminated keyboard

I thought I got a good deal ($1299) but now that I think about it, I'm kind of upset that it does not have the built in battery. I wanted to ask about how many hours this MBP will last and if it was significantly less than the new MBPs with the built in battery. I don't use any graphic-intensive programs but I'd still like a long-lasting battery. I'm thinking about returning this one once I receive it and purchase the refurbished 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 13" with 4GB memory and the built in battery instead.

Thank you for your help.

 

[prodigee]

The built in batteries last about 5 hours, at least in my experience with them. I have heard that your MBP lasts about 3 hours on average, but I can not personally verify those results as I have never used the first generation 15".

Hopefully that was helpful.

 

[Meever]

You will be getting about 2-3 hours more generally (all depends on what you are doing of course).

I would personally feel better knowing that I have the 9600 on the back burner for when I need it and wouldn't mind sacrificing a few hours of battery for it, but if you can't see yourself using the extra horsepower by all means, do what you need to do

P.S.

Don't get the high end 13'. the bump in processing speed is a joke. Also, buy aftermarket ram and upgrade yourself to save some more money.

 

[airplaneman]

I can get up to 8.5 hours surfing/word processing in low screen brightness, but usually get around 4-6 hours. When I'm doing taxing tasks, I get anywhere from 2-4 hours. This is on my June 09 MBP. I can't say for your model, though, as this is the first Mac I've owned .

 

[Patriks7]

I have that same MBP, just with more HDD and RAM added and I was able to get 4+ hours out of it, until I installed Snow Leopard last weekend