Macbook Air 13" Battery Life

[eeptman]

Just got it? Give it at least 2 days of usage and see if things improve. It's common to see low battery life during the first 2 days due to spotlight indexing and other initial kernel/OS tasks

Thanks for advice. I've owned the MBA over two weeks. I did clean reinstallation and rest SMC & PRAM. I will keep observing.

 

[bill-p]

Yes and it's pretty consistent, offline productivity is impressive indeed. You'll expect at least 9 hours if you keep BT and wifi off all the time and doing just productivity works.

Mind you though, if you plan to do CPU intensive stuffs, the battery will immediate drop down to about 3 hours max like gaming or even just surf via 3G USB dongle (shows about 2+ hours with low 90% battery life on my 2010 MBA). For business guy on the move, this machine is incredible, probably due to the ULV when the CPU isn't being taxed. Standard voltage will still suck quite a bit of power during idle/light task.

You can use Coolbook to keep temperature down and extend battery life on those occasions when you don't need more processing power (browsing on 3G as an example).

My 2010 13" can easily last approximately 5-6 hours with Flash on, WIFI on, BT on, and brightness at well over 8 or 10 bars.

Even under intense load, it still lasts 3 hours at least, and that's with my iPhone plugged in and charging the entire time.

Too bad Coolbook only works under SL and doesn't support Core i CPUs.

 

[jackyyeow]

You can use Coolbook to keep temperature down and extend battery life on those occasions when you don't need more processing power (browsing on 3G as an example).

I already have coolbook installed. I own't do anything that will put loads on the CPU when I'm on the move, even if I do it's going to be like 5~10mins thing - the way I work not going to involve any CPU intensive task. So basically the 2011 is just as good for what I need, kinda envy my friend's 2011 unit, even without coolbook his 2011 i7 lasted almost just as long as mine.

 

[DieterRams]

Coolbook's site says it's not compatible with i5 and i7 processors though?

 

[bill-p]

I already have coolbook installed. I own't do anything that will put loads on the CPU when I'm on the move, even if I do it's going to be like 5~10mins thing - the way I work not going to involve any CPU intensive task. So basically the 2011 is just as good for what I need, kinda envy my friend's 2011 unit, even without coolbook his 2011 i7 lasted almost just as long as mine.

Here's a hint for you: make sure to enable only the highest B/2 frequency at the lowest voltage you can possibly achieve.

That way, the GPU won't be clocked up when the CPU is under heavy load, thus battery life will be improved greatly.

It'll surely give you that edge over your friend.

 

[macmba]

Last test I did, and the only so far, I got 6 hours as follow:

Reboot x2 times
Light VM usage - about 15 -20 minutes
Web browsing - a lot
Wifi on all the time
Half brightness all the time
Sync iPhone with iTunes
Download/install updates
Terminal work stuff
Download/install apps from the web

So for all that, I find it impressive.

 

[Lyndo99]

Nope, my 2010 13" ultimate can do like 12 hours if screen dim down to 6 bars wifi off and idle with few apps opened. With basic activities going on like iTunes mp3 and some document typing but wifi still off, I still expecting 9~10 hours.

Once switching the wifi on but without flash installed, light browsing resulting in around 8 hours which is still beating the claimed battery life. That's still with 6 bars if brightness and without any special care.

My friend's 2011 13" ultimate isn't doing any worse - 7~8 hours of light surfing under similar conditions of light browsing, and still seeing about 9 hours of offline activities.

yes my 2011 13" is much the same as your friends, i can usually get 7-7.5 out of it if I'm not doing much other than web surfing and ms word and stuff. This is all done on the lower end of the brightness scale (3-5 bars brightness).

 

[xkmxkmxlmx]

4-5, but I play a LOT of video.

 

[honggil]

Just wondering, for the people who use 3-5 bars of brightness...do you guys use your macAir in low-lit conditions?
Personally, 5 *might* be ok.. but 3 is pushing it lol, unless i'm using it in the dark.