That's boarderline FUD man, come on. 215 mins spinning the optical drive with the sound on and full screen brightness and you're claiming you can't get anything more than that just surfing the web? Every single apple product I've ever owned, iPods, iPhone, PB have met and exceeded their Apple rated battery life. My PB still exceeds it's rated battery life w/ my WiFi on...
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MacBook Air Battery Replacement Trivial?
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That's boarderline FUD man, come on. 215 mins spinning the optical drive with the sound on and full screen brightness and you're claiming you can't get anything more than that just surfing the web? Every single apple product I've ever owned, iPods, iPhone, PB have met and exceeded their Apple rated battery life. My PB still exceeds it's rated battery life w/ my WiFi on...
Or... use it as Apple figured anyone would (On a plane, in a car), drop those devices, and get 7 hours. Plus the battery cell itself is smaller, so it's bound to not hold as much.
I'd gladly take the air on a plane trip rather than a MacBook. But I have neither, and don't need either yet.
The fact that batteries never last anywhere near what's claimed is common knowledge, and is in line with my experience of the 8 Apple laptops I've owned. Do your own test. Charge your MBP up to full and then unplug and use it until your battery life runs out. I bet you don't get anywhere near Apple's claimed 6 hours. I bet you get around 60% of that, just under 4 hours.
That sounds nice, except they only rate it for 5 hours. And, as optimistic as Apple usually is on battery life, that probably means somewhere around 3 to 3.5 hours if you are really conservative in power use.
My iPod touch gets more than the claimed 22 Hours music life, and 5 hour video.
I have usage statistics on and with a combo of Music and Internet use, got 23 hours without a recharge.
My 5th gen, in it's prime, got a solid 16 hours, 4 more than intended.
My old Dell laptop, however, was grossly unusable. Without optical or wifi, I got an hour at most. Our family's power laptop (also a Dell) with massive specs for a Notebook, got 2, with optical on.
So it really varies from device to device- though it seems that notebooks generally are overstated a bit.
Why do people hate this computer so much that they just make stuff up? I mean this is an Apple product forum, not an "I hate Apple and everything they do" forum.
You want us to believe that you regularly go on 15 or 20 hour long flights, that you take three batteries with you and swap them all in/out because of course you are computing for 12 to 15 hours straight?
I mean come-on.
At least bring your complaints into the realm of "possibly true."
I agree, iPods, particularly the more recent ones, tend to get more than the stated battery life under conservative use. However, I still stand by my statement that under normal use Apple's laptops will tend to get about 60%.
I'm not saying this in a derogatory way. All laptop manufacturers make similar claims. I'm sure they do their tests with wifi, BT and the screen all off, and with CPU usage averaging under 5-10%.
I don't see how anyone with an MBP could claim they get 6 hours. I mean, charge an MBP up fully, pull the power out and after a minute look at what the battery meter says on the menu... it won't be 6 hours.
Why do people hate this computer so much that they just make stuff up? I mean this is an Apple product forum, not an "I hate Apple and everything they do" forum.
You want us to believe that you regularly go on 15 or 20 hour long flights, that you take three batteries with you and swap them all in/out because of course you are computing for 12 to 15 hours straight?
I mean come-on.
At least bring your complaints into the realm of "possibly true."
I frequently travel between the US and Europe. With connections that can mean I'm travelling for more than 10 hours at a time. I have an MBP and two spare batteries. Often, by the time I reach my destination all three have been fully used up.
Why do you assume that just because I disagree with your point of view that I must hate Apple? Most people who know me say that I'm an Apple fanatic and too forgiven of Apple.
I hear ya. It didn't take a genious to see the back can be easily removed from the get-go. Never did I once think I couldn't replace this battery.
I've used/worked with and fixed Apple laptops for a long long time and I have never heard anyone complain about having less battery life than Apple quotes in it's specs. If you have a Mac laptop that doesn't get as many hours as Apple says it will (or even more), you are an exception IMO.
Your post is so exaggerated it just reads like a lie. "Significantly less" than 1.5 hours would have to be maybe an hour (or perhaps even less than that) on a battery rated for over 4 hours. So please tell us the details on all these people that got less than an hour out of their PowerBook batteries and how Apple did nothing about it. While your at it point us to the news articles about the outrage that followed, because if it's true then certainly it would have been a colossal deal in the press.
I don't remember hearing or reading anything about it.
I think the official Apple solution to the whole "battery running out mid flight" is to have an additional Macbook Air in your bag. They are so thin you can have multiple AirBooks in your bag. Everybody wins. Especially Apple.
Does the computer have to be mailed in or stay overnight at a Genius Bar? ...If the replacement process is so easy, I would think be a a quick 10 minute procedure at any Apple Store.
I would but I've been patiently awaiting a replacement for my 12" PB and had the MBA come with an optional 160GB 1.8" drive I might have found one. So, yeah, I can't do a drain test on a MBP but I can tell you that all my iPods, my iPhone and my PB exceed their apple rated battery life so I have a hard time figuring out why it's only their MBx line that they decide to over estimate.
Isn't battery life measued when the laptop is sitting there doing absolutely nothing, with screen brightness down to minimum? I think that is usually how it is. So a promised 4 hours battery life, is in reality 2 hours if you do any kind of work, and want to read things on the screen.
Wow. He's not an exception, he's the norm. Even the quickest search of the Apple discussion forums show that normal battery life is much, much lower than Apple claim.
http://discussions.apple.com/search.jspa?objID=c190&search=Go&q=battery+life
I would think that the answer is fairly obvious: the design of the MacBook Air wouldn't allow it. For some reason the thinness and/or lightness of the laptop made a standard replace-able battery unavailable.
There's no possible reason for Apple to do it for the monetary example you give. IF it was possible to make it replaceable, Apple would simply go ahead and charge the $129 (or more) for each replacement battery. People would still buy them.
Thanks for the anecdotal evidence there. As all MR members know the only reason you ever go to the apple forums is 1) you have a problem or 2) you think you can help people with their problems (Mac wise anyway). You aren't going to find posts in the forums from users saying "Hey, I'm just posting this because my Mac is awesome and the battery life is awesome - Thanks Apple" ...
Well you are spreading FUD all over the forum, so you obviously have some kind of emotionally driven agenda in regards Apple.
The only way you could use up that much power or "compute" for that long is by watching DVD's or something equally foolish. If you regularly use your Pro for that, then you probably could burn up so many charge cycles that your three batteries are all woefully short of power, necessitating the constant swapping and poor performance.
No matter how you slice it, such usage is a great exception to how most people would use a computer on an airline, and the needs that most people have for their laptops. Additionally, as many have already pointed out there are plugs on most planes nowadays and they generally provide them precisely for first class habitual travelers like yourself who go on long flights.
Assuming you are not lying (and only exaggerating by the standard amount), then clearly the product does not match your usage profile and you shouldn't buy it. But why exactly are you spending your time running down a perfectly good product that you will never use anyway? It's kind of like a 4-wheel drive aficionado spending his time posting about how lame 2-wheel drive is and making fun of anyone who would dare to drive one.
This is some positive news for a change... Easy access to the innards will have this thing modded in no time.
Easy access to the innards will have this thing modded in no time.
Well, I firmly believe that about 60% use is the norm for MacBooks and MacBook Pros. So far I've owned 6 and that's the typical amount I've seen on them, and other MacBooks my colleagues have. And if you browse through those threads on the Apple forums you'll see that many people replying to people worrying they have a broken battery, who say their own batteries are fine/normal, typically report about 60-70% of what Apple state.
If people really care that much then just post a new thread in this forum asking people how long their batteries last in real world use.
You'll run into the exact same problem. It's a well documented issue. Those who are content and/or happy with their current product (be it car, laptop, job, w/e) have much lower likelihood of them posting anything even if it's "do you like your car/laptop/job." That's just how the human psyche works. Only way to get a real answer is to have standardized tests conducted by third parties. And like I said - CNet got 215 mins spinning the optical drive with the sound on and you're saying that you're experience is only slightly more than that and you're just surfing the web and running a few different programs.
Well, if it's that easy to remove the bottom plate, then maybe a third party will sell a replacement bottom plate that allows for easy battery access.