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Can Someone with the New MBP Comment on Battery Performance?

Can someone with a 17" uMBP comment on realistic battery life? Apple claims 8 hours, 1 hour more than the other uMBP's which makes no sense, considering the massive 17" screen definitely has to drain more energy than the 15 or 13's. The way I see it, the battery life for a 15" should theoretically be longer than the 17", right? So is Apple just full of ****, or are they using like 100watt/hour batteries or something in the 17"?
 
Can somebody explain to me the link between a higher capacity battery and Apple's decision not to allow easy access to the battery/HD compartment? As I understand it, the internal design is exactly the same as the previous Unibody. It's not like there was a structural issue related to the shape of the battery that could only be solved by not having a door/latch to the battery, right?

So, why can't we have easy access AND a higher capacity battery? Or are they just saying that because the battery is so good, there's no need to swap it? Wouldn't it so much better if we could just have a great battery that could be swapped for another great battery, for 10 hours of unplugged joy? Why this seemingly random and unnecessary limitation?

Or....does it just cost that much more to product a bottom plate with battery access? Or is it just to make money on battery replacements? Or...perhaps it's just simply stupidity?
 
PDE said:
Can somebody explain to me the link between a higher capacity battery and Apple's decision not to allow easy access to the battery/HD compartment? As I understand it, the internal design is exactly the same as the previous Unibody. It's not like there was a structural issue related to the shape of the battery that could only be solved by not having a door/latch to the battery, right?

So, why can't we have easy access AND a higher capacity battery? Or are they just saying that because the battery is so good, there's no need to swap it? Wouldn't it so much better if we could just have a great battery that could be swapped for another great battery, for 10 hours of unplugged joy? Why this seemingly random and unnecessary limitation?

Or....does it just cost that much more to product a bottom plate with battery access? Or is it just to make money on battery replacements? Or...perhaps it's just simply stupidity?
Click to expand...

That's exactly it. Why do people have such a hard time understanding the increased battery life? They simply increased the size of the battery to fill up the space they saved. It's seriously that simple.
 
midgetsanchez said:
Apple claims 8 hours, 1 hour more than the other uMBP's which makes no sense, considering the massive 17" screen definitely has to drain more energy than the 15 or 13's.
Click to expand...

The massive size of the 17" definitely allows a bigger battery as well. So if the screen represents 1/2 of electricity usage and the screen size is increased by 1/4, electricity usage goes up 1/8. However, the battery can be increased in size by the same factor as the screen, thus the 17" inch have a 1/4 larger battery but only uses 1/8 more power. (All numbers inaccurate of course :rolleyes: )
 
Battery performance is always a tricky thing to report on because it all depends on what you are doing on your computer - if you are using the wifi, and the blue tooth and writing a DVD and converting a .mov file into an .avi file while rendering the time line on Final Cut with the graphics set to "Higher Performance" in system preferences then you are probably going to get less then a true hours work out of your machine, but then you are also whipping your beast :eek:

So maybe you could be more specific about what you will be requiring the MacBook to be doing and then we can look at how long the battery survives under those specific conditions... :rolleyes::apple:
 
:cool: I was getting frustrated with my 15" new uMBP last night because I was trying to calibrate the battery and the damn thing wouldn't die. On higher performance, with wifi and bluetooth on and constantly surfing the web or video chatting to my girlfriend with the isight, I got more than 4 hours of battery life.

That is just spectacular for a computer this powerful running on high performance mode.

Also, when I was down to about 1 hour left on high performance, I switched to better battery life to see what the numbers would say, and it jumped up to 2 hours remaining.

I haven't tried it yet, but I would expect that just web surfing or word processing on better battery life (with the 9400m) would bring very close to the purported 7 hour battery life
 
Battery performance is always a tricky thing to report on because it all depends doing on your computer
Click to expand...

I have also wondered about this. It seems like the variety of results could be unlimited and you can assume that whatever is advertised as the approx. batt. life will be generous to a fault - just like how it is the standard to promote a 933 GB drive as a 1000 GB terabyte drive etc.

But anyway I was thinking that it would be much more meaningful and helpful and revealing if computer companies would be ballzy enough to give some actual breakdown like that which is done with hdd space. (i.e "100,000 songs", "50,000 movies", "500,000 pictures") etc etc. you get the idea.

So if it would say something like "4 hours of video playback", "2.5 hours of video compression", "5 hours of wi-fi", "30 weeks in sleep mode" :D

That would still of coarse only offer vague estimations of what people would actually get in their own individual day to day use but its still unlimitedly more meaningful then a uselessly ambiguous "7 hrs!!!" :confused: sales slogan.
 
I got my MBP yesterday (2.66 GHz version, stock).

I got 6 hours and 20 min of battery life. Although I spent maybe...an hour off the computer in that time.

So...5 hours and 20 min. With bluetooth off, keyboard backlighting off, and brightness at 1/2.

In that time, I installed adium, onyx, firefox, digital photo professional, eos utilities, and aperture. I had music on at all times. I was watching youtube. I charged/synced my iPod touch from it. And I edited photos on both aperture and digital photo professional.

I love this computer!

Nihar
 
Brad Trent said:
I know...I've harped on and on about Apple's decision to jettison interchangeable batteries for this new technology, and for a lot of users I suppose a built-in battery will be just peachy, but for guys like me who regularly use our laptops to power firewire devices...like a digital capture back...a built-in battery is the worst 'option' imaginable! I regularly use my laptop on location and it is the sole source of power for the digital back when I am tethered, which is 99% of the time. Now I'm fully aware that Apple long ago stopped designing computers for professionals like me when they came up withy new bells & whistles to get the 'average' buyer interested, but battery technology hasn't improved that much that a simple, interchangeable battery is a thing of the past. A friend, also a photographer, recently told me new 17" gets less than three hour use when he shoots tethered...that's a deal-breaker if I'm not near power, which happens all of the time...

BT
Click to expand...

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?t=99123
 
Poirot818 said:
That's exactly it. Why do people have such a hard time understanding the increased battery life? They simply increased the size of the battery to fill up the space they saved. It's seriously that simple.
Click to expand...

There's actually a five minute video on the apple site somewhere explaining how revolutionary the batteries are. They no longer use round batteries (like double a batteries) but now make them square!
 
midgetsanchez said:
Can someone with a 17" uMBP comment on realistic battery life? Apple claims 8 hours, 1 hour more than the other uMBP's which makes no sense, considering the massive 17" screen definitely has to drain more energy than the 15 or 13's. The way I see it, the battery life for a 15" should theoretically be longer than the 17", right? So is Apple just full of ****, or are they using like 100watt/hour batteries or something in the 17"?
Click to expand...
Yes, they are using 95Wh battery is 17" model (as opposed to 73Wh in 15")
which is a hell of a battery!
 
midgetsanchez said:
Can someone with a 17" uMBP comment on realistic battery life? Apple claims 8 hours, 1 hour more than the other uMBP's which makes no sense, considering the massive 17" screen definitely has to drain more energy than the 15 or 13's. The way I see it, the battery life for a 15" should theoretically be longer than the 17", right? So is Apple just full of ****, or are they using like 100watt/hour batteries or something in the 17"?
Click to expand...

15': 73Wh
17': 95Wh
 
Favor:
Could someone with the 15" mbp 9400m run coconut battery and tell me what the capacity should read? Is it 6500 maH? I guess that equates to 73 WH. That's what mine says, but I am curious to know if I have a faulty battery.

Comments like "the battery won't die" and "isight chatting in high performance mode yields 4 hours".. are the exact opposite of what I am experiencing.

Can someone surf, email, word process, chat at full brightness and tell me how long the battery should last? Mine lasts at most 3.5 hours.
 
unagimiyagi said:
Favor:
Could someone with the 15" mbp 9400m run coconut battery and tell me what the capacity should read? Is it 6500 maH? I guess that equates to 73 WH. That's what mine says, but I am curious to know if I have a faulty battery.

Comments like "the battery won't die" and "isight chatting in high performance mode yields 4 hours".. are the exact opposite of what I am experiencing.

Can someone surf, email, word process, chat at full brightness and tell me how long the battery should last? Mine lasts at most 3.5 hours.
Click to expand...

6500 is correct. Actually after calibration mine's at about 6800. Are you sure you're using the 9400m and not the 9600m?
 
m 13inch according to coconut says it has a capacity of 5553 mAh. is that good?
 
Jon-Luke said:
Battery performance is always a tricky thing to report on because it all depends doing on your computer - if you are using the wifi, and the blue tooth and writing a DVD and converting a .mov file into an .avi file while rendering the time line on Final Cut with the graphics set to "Higher Performance" in system preferences then you are probably going to get less then a true hours work out of your machine, but then you are also whipping your beast :eek:

So maybe you could be more specific about what you will be requiring the MacBook to be doing and then we can look at how long the battery survives under those specific conditions... :rolleyes::apple:
Click to expand...

Yes, I realize that processor intensive tasks will skew results. Since I figured Apple was giving 7 hours based on some web, email, and word processing that's really what I was looking for. My Penryn MBP would go 4 hours or so under those conditions. I had heard the original unibody's didn't have great battery performance. Is that true, or were they basically the same as the previous generation?

Basically I'm trying to see how much better the battery is under mild, non battery intensive usage.
 
sclough said:
Yes, I realize that processor intensive tasks will skew results. Since I figured Apple was giving 7 hours based on some web, email, and word processing that's really what I was looking for. My Penryn MBP would go 4 hours or so under those conditions. I had heard the original unibody's didn't have great battery performance. Is that true, or were they basically the same as the previous generation?

Basically I'm trying to see how much better the battery is under mild, non battery intensive usage.
Click to expand...

Perhaps just under 4 hours browsing, email, word processing at full brightness. In a normal office space, I find that full brightness is needed in order to overcome the horrible glare.
 
unagimiyagi said:
Perhaps just under 4 hours browsing, email, word processing at full brightness. In a normal office space, I find that full brightness is needed in order to overcome the horrible glare.
Click to expand...

Wow, given the tests confirming the new batteries are definitely stronger, the previous unibody must not last long at all in those conditions.
 
Will the HDD speed affect battery life?

The above article is great news; for basic web browsing over wifi, 7hrs + is fantastic!

I'm just about to click the confirm button on my order for a 2.8 MBP 15", but I have one final question:
Will the 5400rpm drive get noticeably better battery life than the 7200rpm 500GB HDD?
 
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