Charging the Retina Macbook Pro

[angelomango]

Hey guys,

So it's known that the battery of the new Retina MBP is roughly ~18% bigger than the non-retina MBP (95-watt-hour vs. 77.5-watt-hour) in order to drive the new display. How exactly does this translate to the charging time (let's say from fully drained or <10%)? I only ask because this is similar to the new iPad (with its bigger battery) and how charging took a good amount of time longer to fully charge than the iPad 2. I guess this will not pertain to people who have their Macbook Pros anchored to a wall, but I'm interested to know. It'd be nice to get feedback from the few early adopters! This is my thread/post here and I don't believe I saw a topic about this yet.

P.S. I've seen the Retina MBP in the Apple Store in King of Prussia Mall, PA and it looks breathtaking. 🙂
But I'm still SOOO torn between the Retina and non-retina at the moment! 🙁

Thanks in advance for your responses!

 

[angelomango]

^I didn't mean that the battery was physically 18% bigger (yes, I know it's bigger but not sure exactly how big physically), but that it has more capacity to store energy. Sorry if I worded that incorrectly. 😛

 

[AtticusRyan]

The charging time is quite quick (~2 hrs to charge the battery from depleted to full). However, I am certainly not getting 7 hours from a charge.

 

[angelomango]

The charging time is quite quick (~2 hrs to charge the battery from depleted to full). However, I am certainly not getting 7 hours from a charge.

Thanks for the reponse! It's good to know that I was thinking/worrying about something that wasn't even an issue. Would you mind me asking roughly how many hours you're getting from a charge? I assume you're doing more than what Apple describes in their Wireless Web Test (browsing 25 websites at 50% brightness)?

 

[DeeEss]

Normally it takes modern batteries 4 or 5 cycles to get to optimum charge. You will certainly see an increase in life with after the first 5 or so charges.

 

[angelomango]

Normally it takes modern batteries 4 or 5 cycles to get to optimum charge. You will certainly see an increase in life with after the first 5 or so charges.

Thanks for the insight! I hope that is the case.

BTW, I had a big dummy moment while calculating the increase in capacity. *facepalm* The capacity increase is ~23% not ~18%.

 

[corvus32]

Yeah, it's definitely quick to charge and battery life seems better than my 17" 2011 MBP.

I just charged mine, after 5.5 hrs of wireless web surfing at min brightness and Bluetooth on, from 53% to full in about 45 minutes.

 

[angelomango]

Yeah, it's definitely quick to charge and battery life seems better than my 17" 2011 MBP.

I just charged mine, after 5.5 hrs of wireless web surfing at min brightness and Bluetooth on, from 53% to full in about 45 minutes.

Your input is appreciated! I hope your info will be helpful to others. 🙂

 

[SaleenS351]

How is the battery life? How is it comparison to other Apple laptops. My 2006 MBP battery life is abysmal. I hope to see an improvement over my current '06 MBP and my Sony Vaio Z.

 

[corvus32]

@ SaleenS351:

I squeezed ~10hrs of web surfing out of a single charge - still had some left actually. That's with just Safari open, maybe Terminal and a few other apps briefly, Bluetooth turned on, and the screen brightness set to minimum.

When I unplug mine fully charged, close all apps, and turn down the screen brightness the battery indicator in the menu bar says I have around 11hrs of battery life left.

So far, it's been as good or better than my 17" MBP in this department.

 

[SaleenS351]

@ SaleenS351:

I squeezed ~10hrs of web surfing out of a single charge - still had some left actually. That's with just Safari open, maybe Terminal and a few other apps briefly, Bluetooth turned on, and the screen brightness set to minimum.

When I unplug mine fully charged, close all apps, and turn down the screen brightness the battery indicator in the menu bar says I have around 11hrs of battery life left.

So far, it's been as good or better than my 17" MBP in this department.

That's wonderful news. Thanks for the info