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Expected Battery life on 13" Early-2011

WorldIRC

WorldIRC

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 25, 2005
473
45
Hey Guys,
With screen at 60%, and BT off, what is the average expected battery life on a 13" Early 2011 2.3 unit?

Why do I ask? I've never gotten more than 3 or 3.5 hours battery life without basically putting a hamper on my activities (just web browsing and email primarily).

Computer is only a couple months old.
 
alust2013 said:
If you've got lion, that doesn't help anything. You probably should get 5 hours at least though.
Click to expand...

I am on Lion. Definitely don't see 5 hours without having to basically not touch the computer or turning the screen way down.
 
Lion isn't great for battery life right now, shortening it by about an hour to an hour and a half. Should get better with updates.
 
14 cycles, battery health is down to 91%. Hmm..looks like that's normal.
 
Last edited:
I Have A New

MBA guess it's late 2011 ( 3 weeks old) and I'm getting 6-7 hours. At first it was a little lower, but your battery will gain in capacity I'f you follow Apples suggestions on care.

Once a month at least, run it down to the reserve warning ( kicks in at 3% remaining) then allow it to fully charge.

After three or four full cycles it should have reached it's full potential. If it keeps going down then I would take it back.
 
It'll primarily depend on what tasks you are running on the laptop. Try running browser flash content and it'll knock 3hrs off your battery. Same story for 3d-heavy games or photo/video production/rendering software.

With 30% display brightness (5-6 bars), keyboard backlight off, wifi on, bluetooth off, doing basic (flash-less, no online video) browsing and basic productivity tasks, you should be getting around 7hrs battery life (i.e. around 6.5 to 7.5 hrs).
 
My Mac is classified as an Early 2011 series model. That series is still available and for sale today... It was bought new in June.
 
Peter Franks said:
You say it's early 2011, then say it's a couple of months old? Do you mean you've only had it a couple of months but it's used?


This recent thread is also talking about your model.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1232817/
Click to expand...

"Early 2011" is the current generation model. Apple classifies its computer generations by when they were first introduced, not by when they were manufactured.
 
Peter Franks said:
I hear you... Well in that case the 13" 'early 2011' crop of MBP battery life are SH8T!
Click to expand...

i have a 13" 2011 i5 on snow leopard, i ran logic pro from 90% battery for 6 hours until it went down to 14% youtube definitly kills my laptop tho, it heats up like a bbq or anything with flash!!
 
To go from 4 hours on a Word document to 1 just because you're watching a 3 minute YouTube clip is rubbish, even if you were on YouTube for 30 minutes, It shouldn't kill battery that much, but it does.

Not even dared to watch a film on my MBP yet either. I'm guessing the whirring DVD will kill an already dodgy battery stone dead in about 3 minutes!!

And if Lion is a bit of a battery killer, from what I hear on here, 1 hour less, then no chance of me updating anytime soon

No Flash blocker, you think that will help, always need it, Have ignored the Flash update for months too, Anyone seen any improvement with latest Flash update?
 
Peter Franks said:
To go from 4 hours on a Word document to 1 just because you're watching a 3 minute YouTube clip is rubbish, even if you were on YouTube for 30 minutes, It shouldn't kill battery that much, but it does.

Not even dared to watch a film on my MBP yet either. I'm guessing the whirring DVD will kill an already dodgy battery stone dead in about 3 minutes!!

And if Lion is a bit of a battery killer, from what I hear on here, 1 hour less, then no chance of me updating anytime soon

No Flash blocker, you think that will help, always need it, Have ignored the Flash update for months too, Anyone seen any improvement with latest Flash update?
Click to expand...

The thing with flash blockers is that you can choose which flash objects you want to run, but you don't have to see your battery get sucked dry just because you're reading an article on a page with tons of flash banners...

Normal use for me (mail, Word, some iTunes, surfing etc) gives me about 5-7 hours, depending on how much music or film/clips I watch. In school I basically only do very light browsing, reading and constantly taking notes. I'm there for nine hours, but the computer is in sleep-mode for an hour when I'm on my lunch break. I've never had to use the charger in the library...

This on a 24 week old MBP 13" base running Lion.
 
hafr said:
The thing with flash blockers is that you can choose which flash objects you want to run, but you don't have to see your battery get sucked dry just because you're reading an article on a page with tons of flash banners...

Normal use for me (mail, Word, some iTunes, surfing etc) gives me about 5-7 hours, depending on how much music or film/clips I watch. In school I basically only do very light browsing, reading and constantly taking notes. I'm there for nine hours, but the computer is in sleep-mode for an hour when I'm on my lunch break. I've never had to use the charger in the library...

This on a 24 week old MBP 13" base running Lion.
Click to expand...

how many charge cycles are you on? im on 42 for a 24 week old macbook its slow down a bit now that i have it on charge most of the time
 
can you guys tell me absolutely anything from this?

Charge Information:
Charge Remaining (mAh): 662
Fully Charged: No
Charging: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 5540
Health Information:
Cycle Count: 50
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -682
Voltage (mV): 10920



I posted this up a few months back but didn't get a reason as to why amperage changes so much from one day to the next? Is that in anyway relevant


Last night's charge


Charge Remaining (mAh): 5557
Fully Charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 5557
Health Information:
Cycle Count: 34
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -24
Voltage (mV): 12470

and then

Today's charge


Charge Remaining (mAh): 5480
Fully Charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 5599
Health Information:
Cycle Count: 35
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -764
Voltage (mV): 12346
 
Peter Franks said:
To go from 4 hours on a Word document to 1 just because you're watching a 3 minute YouTube clip is rubbish, even if you were on YouTube for 30 minutes, It shouldn't kill battery that much, but it does.

Not even dared to watch a film on my MBP yet either. I'm guessing the whirring DVD will kill an already dodgy battery stone dead in about 3 minutes!!

And if Lion is a bit of a battery killer, from what I hear on here, 1 hour less, then no chance of me updating anytime soon

No Flash blocker, you think that will help, always need it, Have ignored the Flash update for months too, Anyone seen any improvement with latest Flash update?
Click to expand...

You obviously have an incorrect understanding on OS X battery reading system, so I'll lay it all out.
Battery readings in OS X are based on current usage (i.e. how much more battery life you'll get if you continue with that pace.) So, if you watch a flash video clip, your battery readings will show time that is left if you continue with that task (e.g. you're watching a 3 min clip, it shows you that you have 1hr left for watching video clips), it does not knock your battery life down to 1hr for every other task (e.g. you watched a 3 min clip, then went back to word, your battery readings will go back up to ~4hrs)
 
gorskiegangsta said:
You obviously have an incorrect understanding on OS X battery reading system, so I'll lay it all out.
Battery readings in OS X are based on current usage (i.e. how much more battery life you'll get if you continue with that pace.) So, if you watch a flash video clip, your battery readings will show time that is left if you continue with that task (e.g. you're watching a 3 min clip, it shows you that you have 1hr left for watching video clips), it does not knock your battery life down to 1hr for every other task (e.g. you watched a 3 min clip, then went back to word, your battery readings will go back up to ~4hrs)
Click to expand...

Thanks for your answer, but yes I do know exactly what that means, and why it does that reading depending on what your doing at the time. That wasn't my point, My argument was that if you were to continue on YouTube that time left would be correct. Flash/YouTube uses SO much battery.
But still does nobody know why Amperage changes so drastically from one day to the next, 24 - 764, Nobody know what they are? and what do the other readings mean or say about the battery or MBP I'm using?
 
I have a early 2011 13" MacBook Pro and usually get 6-7 hours per charge. Depending on what I am doing sometimes up 7.5 hours. Compared to what I used to get on my less than 1 year old Windows laptop, this is like an eternity to me. Couldn't be happier.
 
Hey guys, i have a similar problem but didnt want to create another new thread.

I have the Mid-2010 13" MBP and when I was on Snow Leopard, the battery bar would display that I have more than 9 hrs idle. After Lion upgrade, i noticed it would say 4 hrs idle. Both of these are from a restart with absolutely nothing running. Why is Lion taking up so much battery?
 
So nobody really does know what Amperage means and why such dramatically different results from one day's full charge to the next day's full charge?
 
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