I've got a 13" MBP 2.53ghz 4GB RAM and the battery life with Safari, Entourage, and Adium is 3 hours at BEST. Ugh.
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Battery life very disapointing
- Thread starter thefrenches
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Interesting. I get over 4 hours with my outdated 13 inch unibody macbook.
Are you charging something using the USB port ?
Are you charging something using the USB port ?
Im sure you have unreal expectations. I have my Unibody macbook, and with itunes, safari, msn, and pages open, i can get 4 hours or more.
Well, I'm not looking at Flash, at all...must be the Adium
Nothing being charged, just Adium, Entourage, and Safari open (4 tabs) - screen at default settings.
Nothing being charged, just Adium, Entourage, and Safari open (4 tabs) - screen at default settings.
Entirely different experience here OP on my first two charges.
My early 2009 white Macbook gave me around 4 hours for typical use. First time with my spiffy new 13" Macbook Pro did around 6 hours.
Couldn't be happier. Now if I can just figure out that pesky multitouch...
My early 2009 white Macbook gave me around 4 hours for typical use. First time with my spiffy new 13" Macbook Pro did around 6 hours.
Couldn't be happier. Now if I can just figure out that pesky multitouch...
Have you tried calibrating the battery? it may help or it may not, but it is worth a try. Also, open up activity monitor and see if anything is eating up you CPU. you could also download the istat pro widget from apple, and that'll show you if anything is eating up your CPU..Hope this helps
its not like 3 is close to 7....how is his observation/complaint unjustified?
I would calibrate and try again, could be adium but shouldn't be that's draining power. Are fans all the way up or something? If you calibrate and can't get more than 3 hours just browsing the net with brightness at half return it and get a new one.
good luck.
I would calibrate and try again, could be adium but shouldn't be that's draining power. Are fans all the way up or something? If you calibrate and can't get more than 3 hours just browsing the net with brightness at half return it and get a new one.
good luck.
I'm with the original poster. The battery life is overly exaggerated for several reasons:
1. Mac os x doesn't have some magical advantage of power optimization over Windows 7.
2. It's all about the watt-hours of the battery. The 13" mbp jr. has a 58 watt-hour battery. A usual 6 cell battery from say, Dell, Sony, or Lenovo has a 53-56 wH battery. The difference you might say with the mac is that this battery is flush with the system and still exists in a thin machine. But if the mac lasts longer, it's really b/c of the size of the battery and nothing else.
3. With this new generation, the reflective glass + glossy really requires a higher brightness to overcome the reflections than a matte screen. Obviously the sales numbers suggest that people don't care, but using the thing on 50% brightness in a regular classroom was hard. So usable battery life didn't really even increase by more than 30 min for me. You can put a bigger battery in, but if you have to turn up the brightness to achieve the same satisfactory level viewing conditions as a matte screen, then advantage negated. Mind you, I didn't even care about a glossy screen. I could live with that, but the glass is an entirely new level of why, apple, why, why why??
4. 9400m is not really integrated graphics with regards to battery life. It performs way better than traditional integrated graphics, but it must require more power than the intel 4500hd solution, b/c an integrated laptop I have is doing better than the mbp. Had apple just used the intel 4500hd, I think that battery life could have really improved.
1. Mac os x doesn't have some magical advantage of power optimization over Windows 7.
2. It's all about the watt-hours of the battery. The 13" mbp jr. has a 58 watt-hour battery. A usual 6 cell battery from say, Dell, Sony, or Lenovo has a 53-56 wH battery. The difference you might say with the mac is that this battery is flush with the system and still exists in a thin machine. But if the mac lasts longer, it's really b/c of the size of the battery and nothing else.
3. With this new generation, the reflective glass + glossy really requires a higher brightness to overcome the reflections than a matte screen. Obviously the sales numbers suggest that people don't care, but using the thing on 50% brightness in a regular classroom was hard. So usable battery life didn't really even increase by more than 30 min for me. You can put a bigger battery in, but if you have to turn up the brightness to achieve the same satisfactory level viewing conditions as a matte screen, then advantage negated. Mind you, I didn't even care about a glossy screen. I could live with that, but the glass is an entirely new level of why, apple, why, why why??
4. 9400m is not really integrated graphics with regards to battery life. It performs way better than traditional integrated graphics, but it must require more power than the intel 4500hd solution, b/c an integrated laptop I have is doing better than the mbp. Had apple just used the intel 4500hd, I think that battery life could have really improved.
Well I hope you didn't buy it guaranteeing the 6+ hour battery.
Every company slightly over exaggerates this. It all depends on what your screen brightness and what you are running. It could be Adium.
Try calibrating it again and let it run a few cycles. If I get 4 out of it, I would be pretty happy.
*Still counting down till my paycheck that will then be transferred over to the MacAppeal for my new Macbook Pro!*
Every company slightly over exaggerates this. It all depends on what your screen brightness and what you are running. It could be Adium.
Try calibrating it again and let it run a few cycles. If I get 4 out of it, I would be pretty happy.
*Still counting down till my paycheck that will then be transferred over to the MacAppeal for my new Macbook Pro!*
funny that they got 8 hours out of the 15" macbook pro.
I get almost half the battery life under windows than what i do in OSX. windows has crap power management.
My mates HP DV5 has a battery capacity of about 4500 mAh and gets no more than 2 hours.
Face it, Apple computers have excellent battery life for consumer products.
I get almost half the battery life under windows than what i do in OSX. windows has crap power management.
My mates HP DV5 has a battery capacity of about 4500 mAh and gets no more than 2 hours.
Face it, Apple computers have excellent battery life for consumer products.
i really wanna know how do they do it. anandtech didn't provide the brightness of screen.
i really wanna know how do they do it. anandtech didn't provide the brightness of screen.
I got over 8 hours using my 15" 2.8 just surfing the web. It was about 8 hours and 30 mins. The screen was where I like it at about 3-4 bars from the lowest setting. On heavy use I got about 5 hours.
How is your screen usable at 3 bars from the lowest setting? Are you in a pitch black room or something? Maybe these differing battery satisfaction levels just reflect how people use their computers. People like me who don't like the reflections and need full brightness to overcome them, are the ones who are disappointed, but I really shouldn't be as I usually take off 50% from whatever a manufacturer claims. So 3.5 hours is what I expected and that's indeed what I got. It is an improvement from the last generation, and I should be happy if the battery won't degrade nearly as fast over time, but I am not sure of that claim. I figure that some other company would have found similar battery tech and peddled it to the masses. There are dedicated battery companies, and I am supposed to believe that Apple has developed something new in house every single time?
I made the jump back to the mac (last one i had was 20 years ago) due to the 'revolutionary' battery life that got me pretty excited for the Macbook Pro 13" as that's my #1 requirement for a laptop. None of the PC laptops seemed to be innovating in this area except perhaps Lenovo but you would have to pay a high premium for their 9 cell batteries. So far after 3 full charges and calibrations that i followed from Apple's web site I'm getting about 3 hours at best of battery life with the screen turned down to about 6 bars and the keyboard lights off. Im just using Safari as i haven't figured out how to use anything else and bluetooth is off. This is really disappointing and if i don't see anything improve I'm returning it and will happily move back to the PC as frankly the whole Mac OSX thing seems overrated - i got a lot of lag in the cursor and had to reboot and the software update caused some quirky behaviour that wiped out my previous settings.
From what I hear around this forum and in general, the battery life is actually very close to the 7 hours Apple promised.
here is a hint so MACBOOK PRO 13" owners as me can have the 7 hours battery life.
1- get your brightness as low as you could (better to be off)
2- disable all your devices
3- disable all your processes (just watch your screen and dont move the mouse even) lol
4- Switch off your laptop completely is recommended lol
otherwise not even 3 hours if your watching a movie
1- get your brightness as low as you could (better to be off)
2- disable all your devices
3- disable all your processes (just watch your screen and dont move the mouse even) lol
4- Switch off your laptop completely is recommended lol
otherwise not even 3 hours if your watching a movie
Lolz. I get about 6h of battery life downloading stuff, listening to some music and surfing... Though I get it when it's not very bright outside and my brightness is as low as possible... Meaning 1 grade until monitor shutdown. No backlit of the keyboard, no BT...
Not necessarily, what are you browsing in Safari?
I blame Entourage. Just because it's Microsoft.
My battery life remains solid. Anywhere from 4 - 7 hours depending on what I am doing. No complaints at all.
It must be the power management. My 15" Multibody MBP gets up to 3 hours if I'm surfing the web, and it claims 1:22 with this script running using 100% CPU. My 13" MBP claims about 6 hours surfing the web, but if I run the same CPU script, the estimated time remaining goes down to 1 hour. The batteries are about the same size, 58Whr for the 13" and 60Whr in my 15". The 13" has a slower CPU, slower GPU, and just one fan, yet the 15" thinks it will last longer under the same load. The 15" is using twice as much power idle, but about the same under load.
