Full Battery Life 15" MBP: What's Yours?

[BWhaler]

New MacBook Pro owners: What's your time remaining when you unplug your laptop with a full battery?

I ask because think I have serious battery life issues on my late 2008 15" MacBook Pro.

If the battery is fully charged, I set the screen to the first notch in brightness--the one above the screen going blank--and I unplug my laptop, it shows about 2:10 minutes remaining.

2:10 minutes without doing anything with the screen dim? This just doesn't sound right compare with Apple's "4 hours of wireless productivity" claim. With general wireless use, I get about 1:30 of use.

I've owned enough Apple laptops to know they basically fib about battery life, but even knowing this makes me think that something is wrong.

(I have the 9600M set and wireless and BT on.)

Please let me know what time you show with a full battery.

 

[kobefan234]

Why do have 9600 on? Are you using graphic intensive apps? And I can get about 3.5 hours with the 9600 GT.

 

[brop52]

I'm on a MB, but I would recommend you turn off IR in security prefs if you don't use it. I see you have BT on. If you aren't using it it would probably give you some time too. You could test it out. Also, sometimes you have to give it a few minutes to get a decent reading of the time remaining and also calibration helps. Perhaps you need a SMC reset? Is your battery health good on System Profiler? Have you actually timed how long it lasts or are you just using what the time remaining tells you?

 

[BWhaler]

I need the faster GPU.

Thanks for the stats. Any others?

 

[NStocks]

When I'm working, I have BT off, and internet on. The higher graphics cards and full brightness ( 85 screen ). I can get about 3 hours, but I don't care if it's faulty as they are sending me yet another replacement.


... My previous Macbook Pro, I got about 4hrs ( 3 clicks from full brightness on 84 screen )

Just shows that with these new products, to me it's like winning the lottery, you are very lucky if you get a perfect screen ( mine has very bad bleed ), or you get good battery ( I know that mine is probably good as the apple website states the setting in order to get 5 hours.) Oh and the same with replacements, I've now spent well over 3 hours on the phone with apple after sales, and they still haven't sorted my problems out ( should get an email today or I have to call them again )

 

[BWhaler]

NStocks, I agree it is becoming a bit like a lottery with Apple nowadays.

My company bought about 6 new MBP's when they came out, and everyone had different issues. (screen, crooked screens, battery.)

Not one of them had the same issue. This points to very serious manufacturing quality problems.

 

[Jameshrcairns]

3:30 I get Out of mine on First Notch Brightness
Can i Recommend an App called Battery Health Monitor
Google It
I used that

Hope that helps
James

 

[RandomKamikaze]

Just unplugged and the inital result is 4:23. But this will drop as I'm moving my iTunes library at the momeny to my WHS

 

[Timur]

I found a bug with the 9600M GT when you wake the MBP from Standby: minimum power drain (wattage) is higher after wakeup than before (about 5W) and wont get any lower unless you either do a restart or change back and forth to 9400M and then again 9600M.

 

[NStocks]

NStocks, I agree it is becoming a bit like a lottery with Apple nowadays.

My company bought about 6 new MBP's when they came out, and everyone had different issues. (screen, crooked screens, battery.)

Not one of them had the same issue. This points to very serious manufacturing quality problems.

I know, it's really sad and this being my first ever Mac I'm not impressed ( with the hardware ) OS X is great !

and suprise suprise, I still didn't get a email from Apple today so I will have to call them up again tomorrow and explain everything again, to then be put on hold again, then be told the same thing again ...

I askedt he guy from the last call if I would be issued with any compensation for the inconvenience, he said he will put that in the notes ( about 20 pages of notes ! )

So, we will see what tomorrow brings, and I may just say that if I don't get the replacement or at least something for the hassle by this friday, then I want a full refund and I will wait until the next revision ( which is what I really do not want to do, but what's the point of recieving and sending back 3 MBP's if they are all going to be the same )

NStocks