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Battery Life

sheppy1

sheppy1

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 8, 2008
739
1
Hi guys, what kind of battery life do you guys get out of your MBAs when using it for basic web browsing and the likes? Just I'm currently getting about 2 to 2 and a half hours from a single charge ( Which takes about 6 hours btw), it's a new laptop to me but it's ex display so the battery has been through a fair few cycles, I'm looking at getting a new battery fitted by Apple but don't want to waste £100 if it's only going to get me an extra half an hour battery life
 
what's your cycle count ?

I just bought one used and it's at only 26.

I'd like to read some articles/tips on the best usage of MBA battery
 
Cycle count is quite high at 145, I've only had it for about a month now and not contributed to the cycle count that much personally, it was already well over 100 when I bought it, it's an ex display model as I say though and I got it for quite a bargain considering everything else looks, feels and performs as though it was brand spanking new. What kind of battery life are you getting out of yours then?
 
sheppy1 said:
C'mon guys, 30 view but no one cared to share their battery life :(
Click to expand...

You need to take a chill and give people some time. Lashing out isn't going to make people want to share with you...

You didn't even give us specifics like how old the battery is, how many cycles, and etc.
 
Scottsdale said:
You need to take a chill and give people some time. Lashing out isn't going to make people want to share with you...

You didn't even give us specifics like how old the battery is, how many cycles, and etc.
Click to expand...

My bad, lets start again then. My laptop is 19 months old according to CoconutBattery, it's an ex display model that was used at the place I work, I have personally owned and used it for about 1 month now, the battery has 145 cycles and last about 2.5 hours when I use it for basic web browsing with Wi-Fi turned ON and Bluetooth and the IR receiver turned OFF. Oh and the laptop itself is the revision b model
 
I get about 4 hours of basic surfing, with screen on medium brightness and flash turned off.
 
install coolbook and see your battery life go up by about an hour, im getting 4 hours and 30 minutes, surfing safari, itunes open and mail open. the battery has 120 cycles on it.
 
I reckon I get about 3 hours or so doing nothing exciting.

I've had the computer a year and a half now. The battery has 171 cycles, and is at 93% health according to iStat.
 
2yr old rev a that I owned from new. Upgraded SSD to photofast 256gb.

374 battery cycles and showing 92% health (although temporarily told me I need to replace the battery which I hope was a glitch!)

I get about 2.5-3hrs of light work with screen at medium brightness, wifi on blue tooth off. This dramatically drops with streamed video etc.

It would be nice to have longer battery time but it doesn't bother me too much. I accept thin/lightweight at the expense of long battery.
 
Thanks for all the replies guys, seems that most people are getting the same battery life as me, I will install coolbook as suggested though and report back, hopefully that will save me having to get a new battery
 
MacRuler said:
install coolbook and see your battery life go up by about an hour, im getting 4 hours and 30 minutes, surfing safari, itunes open and mail open. the battery has 120 cycles on it.
Click to expand...

What ind of settings do you use for CoolBook? Just downloaded it but I don't really know which settings to use, cheers
 
sheppy1 said:
Cycle count is quite high at 145
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It's actually quite low. I'm at 821 and still at 91% battery health - although because it tends to get so warm, it doesn't last nearly as long as when it was new as the fans kick in quite a bit.
 
theappleguy said:
It's actually quite low. I'm at 821 and still at 91% battery health - although because it tends to get so warm, it doesn't last nearly as long as when it was new as the fans kick in quite a bit.
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Wow OK, I thought 142 was quite high myself
 
I think that the CoolBookl trial thing is kind of pointless, you can do ANYTHING unless you actually purchase it, now I wouldn't mind buying it if I could actually use it for a day or two beforehand
 
I think I will actually just buy CoolBook anyway, need to find some good settings to use with my 1.6Ghz Air first though
 
you're going to need to just test, and I think there's a big coolbook thread in these forums somewhere.

i get about 4-5 hours on half brightness doing typing and stuff + coolbook, though I don't know how much CB is helping, i use it to keep my fans from blasting out....
 
lucifiel said:
you're going to need to just test, and I think there's a big coolbook thread in these forums somewhere.

i get about 4-5 hours on half brightness doing typing and stuff + coolbook, though I don't know how much CB is helping, i use it to keep my fans from blasting out....
Click to expand...

Ok well I found that forum and had a quick read through it, after doing so i decided to buy CoolBook but I don't have the frequences that everyone else seems to have, other people have 800Mhz, 1200Mhz, 1400mhz, 1600Mhz and I only have 1596Mhz...

Edit: Seem to have it sussed now guys, I have CoolBook set at 1596Mhz with a voltage 0.9375 and my Macbook is running quiter than it was before, it's playing 1080p video through YouTube which it couldn't do before and the battery life also appears a tad better, I will have to keep an eye on it over the next few days though
 
I'm at 64 battery cycles so far.

Currently, I get 4 hours of battery life if just doing web and MS Office stuff and 2 hours if I go to Youtube, Apple Trailers, or watch HD stuff in Quicktime.
 
sheppy1 said:
Hi guys, what kind of battery life do you guys get out of your MBAs when using it for basic web browsing and the likes? Just I'm currently getting about 2 to 2 and a half hours from a single charge ( Which takes about 6 hours btw), it's a new laptop to me but it's ex display so the battery has been through a fair few cycles, I'm looking at getting a new battery fitted by Apple but don't want to waste £100 if it's only going to get me an extra half an hour battery life
Click to expand...

I have MBA rev.B (1.6GHz, HDD)

Battery info: 19 months, 93 cycles, 92% health
(The battery had 2 cycles when I received it.)
With WiFi on @802.11g (WPA2 Enterprise), BT off, 1-4 brightness, fan spins @1800rpm
Running Fx3 (1-3tabs), Outliner, Mail.app and perhaps Acrobat

It usually lasts ~3.5hrs.
Never had came close to the 4hrs mark.

Never really pay any special attention at conditioning the battery, just use the battery when its needed and run it off AC adapter if I have a chance.

Depending on what you are actually doing, 2hrs is perhaps a little bit too short in my opinion, you may want to bring it in to the Genius, explain your concerns and hopefully get a quick check.

Good luck and enjoy your Air :)
 
tsubikiddo said:
I have MBA rev.B (1.6GHz, HDD)

Battery info: 19 months, 93 cycles, 92% health
(The battery had 2 cycles when I received it.)
With WiFi on @802.11g (WPA2 Enterprise), BT off, 1-4 brightness, fan spins @1800rpm
Running Fx3 (1-3tabs), Outliner, Mail.app and perhaps Acrobat

It usually lasts ~3.5hrs.
Never had came close to the 4hrs mark.

Never really pay any special attention at conditioning the battery, just use the battery when its needed and run it off AC adapter if I have a chance.

Depending on what you are actually doing, 2hrs is perhaps a little bit too short in my opinion, you may want to bring it in to the Genius, explain your concerns and hopefully get a quick check.

Good luck and enjoy your Air :)
Click to expand...

That's pretty much identical to mine then, I have the Revision B model with the 1.6Ghz processor and normal HDD, mines even the same age as yours and has the same battery health (92%) but it has a few more battery cycles, I will say though that pretty much all I do on my MBA is watch YouTube videos and after reading about how much the Flash Player taxes the CPU of Apple Macs my battery life is probably about right. Hopefully the battery life will start to last little longer when I start University as I will be mainly using it for research and word processing.
 
sheppy1 said:
I will say though that pretty much all I do on my MBA is watch YouTube videos and after reading about how much the Flash Player taxes the CPU of Apple Macs my battery life is probably about right.

Hopefully the battery life will start to last little longer when I start University as I will be mainly using it for research and word processing.
Click to expand...

Yea, I think you have nailed it ;)
I am not entirely certain of the latest Gala flash update that enables GPU acceleration, but I suspect it won't have much impact to the Air's battery since the 9400m is also a power-hungry chip itself.
Alternatively, you may also join the youtube HTML5 trial, see if your battery can last any longer :p

I bought my Air 19 months ago for precisely the same reason as your intended usage - taking notes at lectures and tutes. I gotta say I enjoy the whole experience, except the occasionally wobbly screen. The battery endurance can be embarrassing at times since the latest Unibody MacBook & Pro refresh but it's still manageable.

It would definitely be nice if the Air can trim some more pounds to touch the ideal 1kg/2.2lb mark, but I am not prepared to compromise the full-sized keyboard. I really appreciate the standard layout when I'm touch-typing.
And I would really love to see the battery last longer, not necessarily outlasting the MB &Pros, but definitely would have to be in the same vicinity of their endurance.

Overall, welcome to the MacBook Air user club.
Enjoy the Thinnovation :cool:
 
tsubikiddo said:
Yea, I think you have nailed it ;)
I am not entirely certain of the latest Gala flash update that enables GPU acceleration, but I suspect it won't have much impact to the Air's battery since the 9400m is also a power-hungry chip itself.
Alternatively, you may also join the youtube HTML5 trial, see if your battery can last any longer :p

I bought my Air 19 months ago for precisely the same reason as your intended usage - taking notes at lectures and tutes. I gotta say I enjoy the whole experience, except the occasionally wobbly screen. The battery endurance can be embarrassing at times since the latest Unibody MacBook & Pro refresh but it's still manageable.

It would definitely be nice if the Air can trim some more pounds to touch the ideal 1kg/2.2lb mark, but I am not prepared to compromise the full-sized keyboard. I really appreciate the standard layout when I'm touch-typing.
And I would really love to see the battery last longer, not necessarily outlasting the MB &Pros, but definitely would have to be in the same vicinity of their endurance.

Overall, welcome to the MacBook Air user club.
Enjoy the Thinnovation :cool:
Click to expand...

Well I've just opted into the HTML5 YouTube beta and I must say it's actually very good, videos seem to load faster, it doesn't seem as glitchy and Flash and videos look great too, just a shame only a few videos are supported at this time so the majority of the videos I watch are just going to play in Flash anyway, hopefully it will catch on anyway as Flash is a huge RAM and resource hog on any computer.

Oh I also have a little bit of screen wobble like you say you have aswell, I'm not too fussed about that though as I know any major problems with the hinge are covered by Apple even outside of the warranty period, I also have cover through the company I bought it from too so I should be fine if it develops any other problems :)
 
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