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Safari, Youtube, Spotify, Streaming movies from NAS, Running Numbers and Keynote...I get between 10 and 11 hrs use with remaining battery usually between 10-17%.

I´m more than happy.
 
To summarize:

Speed - up to 20% faster

Power consumption - up to 20% more (with medium use) but same at idle.

Seems to be a logical tradeoff

It's not same only at idle but with a light workload as well.

Otherwise, it's a tradeoff for medium-high workloads as you said. However, the point is that i5 is more efficient in terms of battery consumption while doing the same amount of work as i7. This becomes clear in Anandtech comparison.

Therefore, for the same amount of work done, battery drainage does not even out because i7 is faster while working under more strenuous loads.
 
My mac air 11/i7/8 came in today and I charged it to 100%. It came at 90% charge. It estimated around 5 hours of use at 100%. Is it normal for the battery to not be calibrated on the first day? Anyone else experienced something similar?
 
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I've just been doing light web browsing and occasional youtube videos and I've been getting about 5-6 hours on average...13 inch, 250 gb, 1.7, 8 ram...I've had it for 4 days.
 
i7 ultimate here... 9 to 12 hours, depending if I have Parallels running. Usually completely cool, have heard the fan kick in once in the days I have been using it.
 
I have had this i7, 8gb ram, 13'' for about 10 days now and I'm not getting 8+ hour battery life yet.

How long does the macbook air take to "INDEX?" ANd how long for the battery to CALIBRATE?

How do I know when it's done "indexing" and calibrating??
 
11" i7 256gb 8gb - I routinely get 10hrs of regular use on a full charge. This is timed with my iphone stopwatch. I'm still on Mountain Lion; scared to lose the battery life upgrading to Mavericks...
 
haswell horible

I got an 11 inch I7 8gb ram, 128gb drive less then a week old. Battery life is absolutly horrible compared to everyone else's stats. If I stare at the screensaver with nothing else going on after a restart, I get exactly 8 hours running apple's screensaver on low brightness. (I tested cause daily use pissed me off). that's not so bad, but, having mostly safari, a bit of quicklime and tiny bit of iPhoto use, I get about 4.5 hours! And, when running MainStage (the reason why i got this thing) I get 2.25 hours max! I do expect apples numbers to be higher then mine for sure. However, Here's the kicker, My old 4.5 year old macbook, can still stay on almost 4 hours with the average, safari/youtube, audio editing, a bit of iPhoto etc.... One things for sure, the old macs were designed to compute things on battery power, and the new ones, not at all.
 
I got an 11 inch I7 8gb ram, 128gb drive less then a week old. Battery life is absolutly horrible compared to everyone else's stats.
There are many factors that impact your battery life. See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details, including tips on how to maximize your battery life.
The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.
Could the amount of ram affect the battery life?
4GB vs 8GB?
No, not to any significant degree.
 
I'm trying to figure out if my underperforming battery is par for the course or an issue with this particular machine. I haven't gotten more than 6 hours out of it after 10 days of testing. Guess I need to decide quickly before the 14 day window closes, but so far I'm underwhelmed.

I have the 13" ultimate configuration.

I have had the 2013 13" ultimate i7 machine running Mavericks since Christmas... It is AMAZING! I was worried about the battery life, but it seems to run in the range of 10-12 hour using WIFI (Safari, email, etc) and other general productivity apps like MS Office, Acrobat, Evernote, etc. I can safely go out for a day's worth of meetings without lugging a brick and a power cord.

I do keep the brightness below 50%-- just bright enough so it is not an effort to read. And I have not tried to watch videos to date.

I was skeptical but it has proven to be a great machine.
 
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I have a top spec 13" inch and it took over two weeks for my battery life to sort itself out. I'm now get 10+ hours with light use, normally dim the screen down a bit. Even when playing FM 2014 I can get 4 hours or so out of it on a high spec game.
 
Really impressed with the battery on my 2013 11" i7/8gb/512gb MBA as well, and I am still running 10.8. I didn't really appreciate it until I started ripping my DVD collection recently (the 512 SSD is nice for this) and watching movies at bedtime.

If I'm only watching a movie, after a half hour the battery still reads 100%. After 3 hours it's still 90%. Have never come close to running it all the way down, but the 12+ hour estimates that it shows are probably about right. I have the screen turned way down (5 or 6 dots brightness), but that's as bright as I want in a darkened room.
 
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