Macbook Battery Life Discrepancy?

[shrhaider]

How is it possible that pcmag.com's review and macworld's could have such wildly different results for their "DVD battery drain" tests? Macworld quotes 3.5 hrs of DVD playback to pcmag's pathetic 2hrs and 10 minutes.

macworld:
http://www.macworld.com/2006/05/reviews/mbookmain/index.php

pcmag:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1971099,00.asp

I don't remember if Macworld's specific model is mentioned, so it could possibly be the 1.8 vs PcMag's 2.0 black model. But nevertheless, just over 2 hours is unacceptable. Could macbook owners post their own results with battery life?

Edit: ArsTechnica's review also shows over 3 hours for DVD playback:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/macbook.ars/6

 

[Anoi]

I've only really timed it when browsing the web with the airport on, and that gave me roughly 3.5-4hrs usage... Not as long as i'd have liked, but not that bad really.

 

[medea]

It depends on what battery settings you are using. I get 3.5 hours using custom settings, you can squeeze out more though.

 

[gloss]

I watched an episode of House on battery power and it took me to about 75%, which adds up to about 3 hours of DVD playback.

It might depend on what power settings you're using.