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New MacBook - Battery?

S

swb1192

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 4, 2007
258
0
I just got the new Macbook yesterday (2.4 ghz) and when I charged the battery overnight, it says that there is now 3:30 battery time left at 99%.

On Apple's website, they say that the MacBook has 5 hours of wireless productivity....

Is their estimation really high? Or what am I doing wrong?
 
Give the MacBook a good cycle (calibrate the battery) - unplug it when it's full, and use it till it dies. Charge up to full again and see what it tells ya.

You should only do this once every couple of months (if that).
 
KyPosey said:
yeah at my first charge it said 3.5 hours then i did the drain and re-charge and its great now.

(i have a alum macbook)
Click to expand...

Sounds good. I was afraid that I wasn't going to be getting the full 5 hours! I'll deplete it during the day, that's for sure (I could use this thing forever!)

Thanks
 
3:30 might be correct if you had some applications running... I get 3:30 usually if i'm at FULL brightness screen/keyboard and have Entourage,Safari and Itunes open and working... If only 1 thing is running and i dim the screen and keys, then i get over 5 hours. But it all fluctuates constantly depending on wireless activity, cpu usage, etc.. Got to Apple's website and calibrate your battery correctly.
Enjoy your new Macbook ;)
 
I get over 7 hours at lowest visible brightness and with 3 applications running.. AMAZING lol
 
youssefm said:
I get over 7 hours at lowest visible brightness and with 3 applications running.. AMAZING lol
Click to expand...

Did you actually use it for 7 hours straight, or is that what your battery said at one point? There's a difference... I've had mine show 6:45 minutes with Aiport/Bluetooth off and the CPU was idling...
 
swb1192 said:
I just got the new Macbook yesterday (2.4 ghz) and when I charged the battery overnight, it says that there is now 3:30 battery time left at 99%.

On Apple's website, they say that the MacBook has 5 hours of wireless productivity....

Is their estimation really high? Or what am I doing wrong?
Click to expand...

It's common sense, but:
- Remember to turn off the Bluetooth, WiFi and/or Infra Red receivers if and when you don't use them.

- Turning the backlight off when you don't "really" need it on, even though LED doesn't drain much energy per se.

- Having the screen brightness set to max can drain battery as well, the lower the better.
 
VSMacOne said:
Did you actually use it for 7 hours straight, or is that what your battery said at one point? There's a difference... I've had mine show 6:45 minutes with Aiport/Bluetooth off and the CPU was idling...
Click to expand...
When my battery was brand new, I got over 6.5 hours doing light internet browsing and iChat. 7 is a lot, but not unrealistic. Of course the brightness and volume were low, bluetooth was off, et al.
 
Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8310/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/107)

I have had my battery drain out completeley a few times then I fully charge it. Is this bad? And if I'm not using it and its asleep, should I keep it plugged in?

I only got 3 hrs yesterday at 50% brightness streaming a video online. I think max I can get is 4 hrs with light browsing and periodic. I haven't used it 4 hrs straight to test.
 
nidserz said:
Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8310/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/107)

I have had my battery drain out completeley a few times then I fully charge it. Is this bad? And if I'm not using it and its asleep, should I keep it plugged in?

I only got 3 hrs yesterday at 50% brightness streaming a video online. I think max I can get is 4 hrs with light browsing and periodic. I haven't used it 4 hrs straight to test.
Click to expand...

Different people say different things... I for one try to keep it plugged in most of the time, and don't really let it die down completely except for when i got it (in order to calibrate it) and probably will do that about once a month... I usually leave it plugged in most of the time... My replacement MB came in on Nov 20th and since then I have calibrated the battery once, I have 2 cycles on it, and 4304mAh max cappacity (although that seems to oscillate a bit).
 
VSMacOne said:
Different people say different things... I for one try to keep it plugged in most of the time, and don't really let it die down completely except for when i got it (in order to calibrate it) and probably will do that about once a month... I usually leave it plugged in most of the time... My replacement MB came in on Nov 20th and since then I have calibrated the battery once, I have 2 cycles on it, and 4304mAh max cappacity (although that seems to oscillate a bit).
Click to expand...

ah okay. well i use it unplugged in class for 3 hours a day and then in bed for about 1-2 hours at night. other than that its plugged in or just sleeping.
i have 34 cycles and i got it about 1 month ago and max is 4336mAh. (don't know what that means). really hope to get the battery life to 4 hours consistently for browsing. video should be 3 hours so i can at least watch a movie on the go. thx
 
silverblack said:
It's normal. All laptop manufacturers overstate their battery life.
Click to expand...

that is true, however i actually do believe apple's claims are a lot more accurate than other manufacturers. according to apple, the battery tests contained 50% brightness, and using safari lightly browsing various websites, however, they do not state what kind of sites they went to, so if they went to sites that only had text, they would get better battery life than if they went to sites with tons of pictures...

i myself have gotten 6 hours on a charge, and average 5.25-5.5 hours with a couple tabs open in safari and adium running
 
so what's the average, does it seem?

And maybe you all can answer another question for me too...

my battery keeps jumping back and forth on the estimates of time.
like 20 minutes ago it said 2:23
then it jumped to 3:03
now its 3:09
whats up with that?
its still new, i only bought this guy this past weekend..... is it still working out the kinks or what?
 
WinkWink726 said:
so what's the average, does it seem?

And maybe you all can answer another question for me too...

my battery keeps jumping back and forth on the estimates of time.
like 20 minutes ago it said 2:23
then it jumped to 3:03
now its 3:09
whats up with that?
its still new, i only bought this guy this past weekend..... is it still working out the kinks or what?
Click to expand...

The time jumps around because you're doing different things and the Mac is using more/less power. Just like a car with a MPG gauge. If you're accelerating, the MPG goes way down. If you're coasting down a hill, the MPG goes way up.

If it bugs you, do what I do. Put the battery gauge in percent. You still get a good feel for how much juice time you have. And if you want an estimated time, you can click the battery symbol and get the time.

ft
 
I thought I read on the Apple support forum that the new Macbook's batteries come calibrated.... I could be wrong though. And I think my new macbook battery doesn't last as long as the old white macbook (santa rosa), and I know the components are higher in the new ones. The charge time also seems to take forever on the new macbook as well.
 
You don't need to do the "charge 100% and drain" for the first time. I don't do battery calibration every month and I still get 4-5 hours of wireless along with other apps like iChat, iTunes, etc and even exported 4-5 iMovie projects that were 5 minutes each with 720P HD resolution. I still had over 30% battery life...
 
Biggest things that help with battery life are:

Screen Brightness
Number of Open Applications

I just got my new 2.4 and it lasts a good four hours with everything turned up and running several apps.
 
The following is my opinion only and not intended to be taken as gospel.

My thoughts on calibration of a battery is not that it extends the battery life (no matter what Apple or anyone says), but to have the OS and the battery be in "sync" in terms of capacity estimates.

Sure, fully discharging the battery every so often may help extend the battery's overall life, but I gotta believe that with the new battery technology, this benefit is very small. We're not using NiCad batteries anymore.

So calibrating your battery every month or two can't hurt and you'll have a more accurate capacity gauge to show for it.

Or you could just put it on the Percent display and not worry about it.

ft
 
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