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Battery on the 13" MBA sucks!

orpheus1120

orpheus1120

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 23, 2008
1,435
61
Malaysia
So I was typing away on my fully-charged top of the line MBA in the late morning. Suddenly I was alerted by a pop-up window that my MBA was now running on reserved power. I was like, "WTF??".

Only then did I feel a warm streak of rays shining upon my left cheek by the setting sun outside my window. Dumbfolded, I looked at my wall clock, only to realize 7 hours had elapsed unbeknown to me! :eek::eek:

The long battery life of the MBA does make time flies, and its battery life seemed so short thus! :D
 
orpheus1120 said:
So I was typing away on my fully-charged top of the line MBA in the late morning. Suddenly I was alerted by a pop-up window that my MBA was now running on reserved power. I was like, "WTF??".

Only then did I feel a warm streak of rays shining upon my left cheek by the setting sun outside my window. Dumbfolded, I looked at my wall clock, only to realize 7 hours had elapsed unbeknown to me! :eek::eek:

The long battery life of the MBA does make time flies, and its battery life seemed so short thus! :D
Click to expand...
Same here, 7-8 hours the other night with heavy usage.
 
7 Hours? Nice....makes me happy to know I can use this virtually all day on battery.
 
I hope I can get decent battery on my 11.6" when it arrives. I plan to publish a full review with XBench, Geekbench benchmarks, photos comparing it to the old MacBook Air, disk tests, and everything. I have the old model 13"/2.13/SSD model to compare the new one too.
 
orpheus1120 said:
So I was typing away on my fully-charged top of the line MBA in the late morning. Suddenly I was alerted by a pop-up window that my MBA was now running on reserved power. I was like, "WTF??".

Only then did I feel a warm streak of rays shining upon my left cheek by the setting sun outside my window. Dumbfolded, I looked at my wall clock, only to realize 7 hours had elapsed unbeknown to me! :eek::eek:

The long battery life of the MBA does make time flies, and its battery life seemed so short thus! :D
Click to expand...

Okay...so basically you ARE getting apple's rated 7 hours and because you are so immerse in your MBA experience, it seems shorter so thus the batter sucks?

...........*walking away*

..........*opens door*

..........*door slam sound*
 
Yup, averaging 7 hours for each of my last three full charges. Got a little less when using the video out port, but I'm very happy with this battery thus far!
 
7 hours to me is enough, trust me. It's just that with the adoption of any technology, comes the expectation and hunger for more power and hence the seemingly diminishing satisfaction for the current one.

I guess that's human greed huh?
 
Maybe my coffee hasn't set in as of yet but is the OP making a joke or is he serious? The advertised battery life is 5 hours, if he got 7 that would be good right? Also I'm lost on his misleading thread title. Again, it must be a joke I'm not picking up on. :cool:
 
I find battery life to be great on my 13.

Edit: I should really read the whole post before responding...
 
orpheus1120 said:
It's a 13" MBA. Not the 5-hr 11.6" MBA. And yes, you are not getting my joke. :D
Click to expand...

Yea, someone needs their sarcasm detector adjusted. :D

I'd say I find the battery life on my 13" MBA to be good too, since I haven't had to recharge it and I've used it for 3 evenings now. Will probably have to recharge tonight though.
 
I ran the battery down completely on the first day asap to do a battery calibration. Mine was shipped with 85% power, or so it was reported by the system.

I was running with 1 bar for brightness and typing on my work. Surprisingly my eyes could easily adjust to that brightness level. I will probably turn the brightness up a couple of bars and see how it will affect battery duration though.
 
Sheldon got you all (FYI: Sheldon is a caracter from the TV show "The Big Bang Theory").

Only one word: BAZINGA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Dammit Cubs said:
Okay...so basically you ARE getting apple's rated 7 hours and because you are so immerse in your MBA experience, it seems shorter so thus the batter sucks?

...........*walking away*

..........*opens door*

..........*door slam sound*
Click to expand...

hcho3 said:
What did you expect, 70 hours?
Click to expand...

epictempo said:
Do people just read title and reply?! He's being humorous. Made me smile. ;)
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You didn't expect those people above to actually READ an entire, I don't know, 100 word post did you? I mean...that's A LOT! They would rather just spew and well..."*door slam sound*"

I'll call them...professional troll watchers, waiting to pounce.
 
beast 11
 

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1 bar brightness works in an airplane at night, but I work at 80% or more brightness. With that, I can tell you that the battery is only 4.5 hours.
It's definitely less than the 13" macbook pro 2010 model under identical conditions.
Typically, the only way that I hit Apple's claimed battery estimates is by going considerably less than 50% brightness. I think that battery life estimates are not to be believed anyway, but I like the multiply by 0.6 rule and you get a truer estimate of battery life.
The 13" mbp model has a 63.5 wh battery, whereas this new one has a 50 wh battery.
 
einmusiker said:
I ran my 11.6 down to 0% today and I would guess less than 4 hours unfortunately :/ hopefully a future update can improve it
Click to expand...

I concur if your screen brightness was at or near max. I'd say 3:45 is the ceiling for those who like to see what they're doing :> Not unexpected, but just trying to decide if that's good enough.
 
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