Can Someone with the New MBP Comment on Battery Performance?

[mikethebigo]

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?

Better yes, significantly better, I don't know. However, there's another factor to consider on the 15" 2.8 model if you're looking for the best battery life. The processor Apple put in is not the new P9700 with a 25W TDP, it's the older T9600 with a 35W TDP. That means that the processor draws more current and consumes more battery life.

If battery was your primary concern I'd get a P series processor, either the 2.53 or the 2.66.

 

[shoppy]

I get now consistently 7hrs and 16 mins or so on my usual browing and listening to itunes, however if I play wow it drops fairly quickly.

 

[RoscoeUA]

I'm on the 15in MBP with the 9400M. I've had it for a few days and was able to calibrate my battery. This is what I started with this morning and its pretty steady.

 

[mikethebigo]

My laptop's battery is in the red, and it still reads over an hour of charge left

 

[Jon-Luke]

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.

My last laptop was the 2007 MBP 2.2GHz with 4GB Ram and under the conditions you talk about I was getting about 3 to 4 hours of battery life with the new unibody there is definitely an improvement I now get about 4 to 5 hours.

Some thins to note though... My Laptop is always connected to a server via wifi that also has my time machine drive, when the time machine goes into action I've noticed quite a drop in battery performance.

Someone asked for a pic of the coconut battery readout here it is...

On this subject of batteries what would people recommend as the best way to calibrate one's battery?

 

[2tallyAwesome]

Hi Everyone,

I read frequently, but only really post when I am about to buy, or have just gotten a new computer. I just traded in my 1.83 C2D Macbook for a 2.26 13 inch MBP, and love the battery life jump.

First, I tried running it down as quick as possible. I turned up the brightness and backlit keyboard all the way, bluetooth and wifi on, dvd playing in the background, and browsing youtube and chatting with friends. I worked it as hard as I could and got just over 3 hours in battery life. I see this as the bare minimum.

Then I tried it under extremely light load. Brightness at 40%, keyboard lights off, bluetooth off, just general chatting and browsing. With this I got about 6.5 hours of use before I had to plug it in.

All in all it's a great battery, and a great laptop.

 

[sclough]

On this subject of batteries what would people recommend as the best way to calibrate one's battery?

Others may correct me, but I thought it was to fully charge the battery, then drain the battery all the way down until the computer shuts itself down with no battery and then to recharge it completely to 100%. The process is somewhere on Apple's website.

 

[Jon-Luke]

Found the recommended way to configure your battery on the apple site (here's the link)

So I did this yesterday and charged her up last night to see how the battery would last in a test today.

I used a separate device to time the battery. When the test started the time on the battery icon stated (4:03). I spent the morning in a brightly lit coffee shop (So screen brightness was two stops from full). I worked on various word processing documents; Final Draft, Word and Pages all open at the same time while I listened to iTunes on my headphones. I switched the Airport off and kept my bluetooth off.

Then I put the MacBook to sleep while I went to lunch and later at home worked for about another 30mins before she died. The official time: 03:28:49.1 (3hrs, 28mins, 49sec) - To be honest I was expecting something better, something closer to 4hrs.

Surprisingly my battery capacity has improved to 4684 mAh since the test - here's the most recent Coconut report:

Can anyone comment on improvements in battery life - I can remember that after about a month of use with my iPhone the battery life seemed to suddenly improve by about 10-20% has anything like this happened to any MacBook Pro users? I don't use my battery all that much.

Apple has more to say about day to day battery use that I wasn't aware of:

"Standard Maintenance

For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Apple does not recommend leaving your portable plugged in all the time. An ideal use would be a commuter who uses her MacBook Pro on the train, then plugs it in at the office to charge. This keeps the battery juices flowing. If on the other hand, you use a desktop computer at work, and save a notebook for infrequent travel, Apple recommends charging and discharging its battery at least once per month." (From the following Apple Page)

 

[Scarecrow01]

Does anyone here have the 3.06 model? I'm interested to find out how they have gone.

I'm just waiting for Apple to confirm my ADC membership so I can place my order, and between the discount and the money I'd put aside to get it before I realised I was eligible for it, I can easily afford to goto the 3.06 if I want to.

 

[fehhkk]

Under full brightness, Wifi N, no bluetooth, and streaming MLB.tv in "HD" D), I managed to get 4 hours of battery life.

Under light load, just web browsing, 40% brightness, battery timer read 8:20h... (highly improbable, more like 6-7 hours). still amazing, best battery life in all laptops I've ever had.

 

[unagimiyagi]

I had the 15" unibody and under the full brightness conditions that you mention, I think that your tests are accurate. the 15" might actually get a bit better battery life...Full brightness I got 3:45 surfing with wifion, reading sites, no flash, no video, no downloading, no music, reading pdfs, that's about it.

edit: under office lighting conditions. Had to use full brightness or I would be staring at myself with the reflections.

OK at least I know that I didn't have a defective battery.

 

[ooter]

about 4.5 hours on 13" mbp,
that's with no bluetooth,no keyboard back light and brightness at about 40%

running average cpu load nothing taxing,

tbh expected more but still pretty good all the same.

 

[unagimiyagi]

Ahh....I now know that my battery tests are in line with what to expect.

Check this from AMD/Gizmodo:

official laptop battery life claims have an extremely tenuous relationship with reality. Not surprisingly, everyone's using the same tricks to conjure their silly estimates—and they don't plan on stopping.

AMD, as part of a some kind of PR campaign, is saying the culprit is a battery testing suite called MobileMark 2007:

the parameters for this test include having the screen at just 20 percent brightness, Wi-Fi turned off and no music, video, games or Web pages running. More or less, the test turns a computer into a dimly lit clock, then sees how long it can run.

That is exactly the kind of test you'd have to run to hit manufacturers' 50-100%-inflated figures,

In other words, 4 hours with screen at full brigthness, just surfing, is actually not bad for the 15" unibody mbp. For reference, I get about 2:45 doing the exact same thing with my classic mbp penryn. The mobilemark battery test that some reviews are quoting is simply not realistic, esp. with a glassy screen at 20% brightness. I find it hard to believe that anyone can find that usable, but yes, if the mbp is used exactly like mobile mark, I guess you can get 7 hours of battery life.

The take-home point is that screen brightness drastically affects battery life, and you can continue almost halving manufacturer's claimed battery life estimates. In that sense the 15" unibody is pretty solid right now for having a nonprotruding battery.