Macbook Air 11'' Battery Life

Discussion in 'MacBook Air' started by Trey M, Aug 5, 2012.

?

Battery Life?

  1. Close to 5 Hours as Advertised by Apple

    12 vote(s)
    38.7%

  2. Usually Around 4 Hours

    10 vote(s)
    32.3%

  3. 3 Hours

    4 vote(s)
    12.9%

  4. 3 Hours if I'm lucky...

    5 vote(s)
    16.1%
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  1. Trey M, Aug 5, 2012

    Trey M macrumors 6502a

    Trey M

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    #1
    I've had my 2011 MBA for over a year now, and I love it to death but I've never been impressed with battery life. In fact, I feel like my battery is inferior to several other people's; a couple of friends use the same laptop and they always seem to edge me on battery life. However, I do prefer the screen brightness at 75-80%, and I use Chrome as my primary browser. Based on those use cases (75% screen brightness, Chrome or Firefox for that matter), what do you guys average for battery life on your 11'' MBA's?
     
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  2. KPOM, Aug 5, 2012

    KPOM macrumors G5

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    #2
    You may want to add choices so we can compare 2011 vs. 2012 MacBook Airs.
     
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  3. Trey M, Aug 5, 2012

    Trey M thread starter macrumors 6502a

    Trey M

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    #3
    I thought about that, but it seems (at least) like the 2012 models have had a much better public perception regarding battery life. Other than ML issues, there hasn't been a whole lot of negative comments based on the 2012 model vs. several when the 2011 was released.
     
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  4. stisdal, Aug 5, 2012

    stisdal macrumors 6502

    stisdal

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    #4
    I get near 5 hours on my 2011 11" air. But, I also tweak for max battery life. (No extra running processes/apps if I can help it, no iStat menus running etc) I too like the screen a little brighter, but otherwise I use Safari/minimal applications to get better battery life.

    So, its kind of a choice isn't it?
     
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  5. Trey M, Aug 5, 2012

    Trey M thread starter macrumors 6502a

    Trey M

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    #5
    What's a choice? Using Chrome and such? I wish Chrome didn't accelerate Macbooks like it does. No matter what Macbook, Chrome will probably degrade battery life by at least one hour. Something about it makes the Macbooks work extra hard.
     
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  6. dmelgar, Aug 5, 2012

    dmelgar macrumors 68000

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    #6
    On my 2010 11" MBA running Chrome, I could get 5 hours fairly easily. I typically keep the brightness down quite a bit. That has a big effect. Typically one notch below middle. Make sure not to run flash etc. Nothing spinning the CPU. When I first got it, I went to a conference, just taking notes in an editor, Wifi may even have been off, brightness turned down to minimum. I got 9 hours out of my 11" MBA. I was ecstatic. I've generally been happy with its battery life. Even after 2 yrs of fairly hard use (220 cycles), it has up to 91% battery life.
     
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  7. Trey M, Aug 5, 2012

    Trey M thread starter macrumors 6502a

    Trey M

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    #7
    Do you use safari as well? I want to bring myself to use safari exclusively but I just do not like it..
     
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  8. srxtr, Aug 5, 2012

    srxtr macrumors 6502a

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    #8
    What makes you prefer Chrome over Safari?
     
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  9. Trey M, Aug 6, 2012

    Trey M thread starter macrumors 6502a

    Trey M

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    #9
    I prefer Chome's design, to me it's just more useable, I prefer their bookmark syncing over Safari's, their Webkit is just faster, it works nicely with the Chrome mobile app, I like their plug-in store or whatever it's called...for some reason I've just never liked Safari. When I do side by side tests it's consistently slower than Chrome or Firefox, and like I said I just really like Chrome's design. That's totally my opinion though...It's strange because typically I prefer using stock Apple everything but Chrome is the exception for me, even though it screws battery life.
     
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  10. srxtr, Aug 7, 2012

    srxtr macrumors 6502a

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    #10
    It's kinda funny, I've slowly migrated over to Chrome. At first I only used Chrome because they had native flash built into the browser, and I didn't want to install flash. Now I use Chrome almost exclusively (though I still prefer Safari's style of zooming in and out)
     
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  11. Trey M, Aug 7, 2012

    Trey M thread starter macrumors 6502a

    Trey M

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    #11
    What zooming are you referring to? The trackpad zooming?
     
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  12. Beau10, Aug 7, 2012

    Beau10 macrumors 6502a

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    #12
    I used Safari 6 for a few days after upgrading to Mountain Lion. I actually switched back to Chrome after finding it to tax my CPU more... it seemed on average to pull down another 3-5% CPU for similar usage. Can't say this was a terribly scientific assessment though, just throwing it out there that for me it didn't seem to be the more resource thrifty.
     
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  13. srxtr, Aug 7, 2012

    srxtr macrumors 6502a

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    #13
    Yep
     
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