New MacBook Pro 8-hour Battery JOKE!

M

mm1250

macrumors 6502
I just bought a new MacBookPro 15'' and i'm extremely disappointed how Apple mislead how the notebook can run 8hrs without a charge. The most I was able to get was around 4hrs or so. Is anyone else noticing this also?

Also, I noticed the battery is not removable. My old MBP had a removable battery. This really sucks!

Everything else is great with the notbook, now have to decide what to do, if I should keep or return.
 
The battery is removable, you simply have to unscrew the whole bottom so it's not meant for putting in a new one while charging the other.

In any case I've gotten about 6 hours with my previous gen 13" MBP. Obviously things like watching videos etc will have an effect on this.
 
It depends on what you do with the laptop. If you're running a program like Photoshop or FCP, you're going to notice that it drains the battery pretty quickly. On the other hand, if you're just browsing the web (assuming there isn't too much flash) you should be able to get at least 6 hrs...
 
I used my new i7 15" for 6.5 hours on battery yesterday and had 30% left. I do turn the screen down and was just doing word processing and a little Photoshop but with care you could get 8 hours.

My car says it will get 28mpg on the sticker but if I run the piss out of it, I would expect less!

So should you!:eek:
 
Ok, it's good to know I can replace the battery, but with my old MBP I can have 2 batteries and swap them out.

At this time only thing i've been running was safari, email and itunes. that's it, no drastic apps that would drain up battery. I'm going to do a few tests, turn off bluetooth, wifi and run it for a day and see what happens. I bet the 8hrs won't work still.
 
From the Apple page: 'The wireless productivity test measures battery life by browsing various websites wirelessly and editing text in a word-processing document with display brightness set to 50%.'

So you'll get their estimate life if you have the display down to 50%, only surf a handful of websites (presumably without Flash or video playing), and editing in a word processor.

Also, the battery has been sealed in to all of these notebooks for over a year now, where have you been? You could have found that out by easily reading a review of the new units or reading the spec sheet clearly.
 
mm1250 said:
Ok, it's good to know I can replace the battery, but with my old MBP I can have 2 batteries and swap them out.

At this time only thing i've been running was safari, email and itunes. that's it, no drastic apps that would drain up battery. I'm going to do a few tests, turn off bluetooth, wifi and run it for a day and see what happens. I bet the 8hrs won't work still.
Click to expand...

It would likely be best for you to return it before the 14 days:eek:
 
The "marketing" battery time numbers are always like 1.30h more that the reality. That sucks but it's like that.

Maybe if you leave your mac totally idle, you could reach the advertised numbers.
 
GregGebhardt said:
I used my new i7 15" for 6.5 hours on battery yesterday and had 30% left. I do turn the screen down and was just doing word processing and a little Photoshop but with care you could get 8 hours.

My car says it will get 28mpg on the sticker but if I run the piss out of it, I would expect less!

So should you!:eek:
Click to expand...


I understand what your saying, I'm not expecting 100% 8hrs, but 4hrs vs. 8hrs for typical usage is 1/2 the advertised performance. I know certain apps can be CPU/Memory drains etc and will reduce the load quicker.
 
mm1250 said:
At this time only thing i've been running was safari, email and itunes.
Click to expand...

The amount of power needed to run these sorts of things varies greatly. Watching hulu takes more power than reading the forums. Listening to music through the speakers takes a lot more power than listening through headphones.
 
Before you get all rowdy, calibrate your battery. You may find that helps matters. If Apple says 8 hours I'd ventre to guess I'd see 6 in my circumstance.
 
mm1250 said:
I understand what your saying, I'm not expecting 100% 8hrs, but 4hrs vs. 8hrs for typical usage is 1/2 the advertised performance. I know certain apps can be CPU/Memory drains etc and will reduce the load quicker.
Click to expand...

Glad you understand that as the 8 hour figure is just like the 28mpg figure for the car and you will only get with the CPU near idle as in word processing.

Please do not expect to get near 8 hours with what you were running.;)
 
mm1250 said:
I just bought a new MacBookPro 15'' and i'm extremely disappointed how Apple mislead how the notebook can run 8hrs without a charge. The most I was able to get was around 4hrs or so. Is anyone else noticing this also?

Also, I noticed the battery is not removable. My old MBP had a removable battery. This really sucks!

Everything else is great with the notbook, now have to decide what to do, if I should keep or return.
Click to expand...

In order to somewhat get closer to Apple's advertised time, you need to have the standard hardware configuration: i5 proc, 5400 rpm hard drive, 4 gig ram, 50% brightness on the monitor, they prob didn't use the usb port, and all they did was type documents and use the internet. just a thought:)
 
I get less than 3 hours out of the '7 hours' battery of my 13" MBP. BT off, brightness down to around 70% and no heavy duty tasking. If I don't touch it, it would last 5 hours. But 7?! Never.

I would expect 4-5 hours from that '10 hours' battery.
 
It does not seem like battery is defective but just in case...

1. Calibrate the battery
2. Check your battery capacity:
Apple Icon -> About this Mac -> More Details -> Power

Check Full Charge Capacity

Do quick math:

full charge capacity / *theoretical full charge capacity = (This should be more than 80%, otherwise it is likely that battery is defective)

*Not sure what the capacity is on the new mac so someone please fill me in on this...
 
mm1250 said:
I just bought a new MacBookPro 15'' and i'm extremely disappointed how Apple mislead how the notebook can run 8hrs without a charge. The most I was able to get was around 4hrs or so. Is anyone else noticing this also?

Also, I noticed the battery is not removable. My old MBP had a removable battery. This really sucks!

Everything else is great with the notbook, now have to decide what to do, if I should keep or return.
Click to expand...


Where have you been the past year? Apple hasn't made a "user-replaceable" battery since the late '08 model. I don't think any current Apple product has a user-replaceable battery now. (Not including MacPro PRAM batteries).

Also Apple's state battery life is rarely what they state it as. My late '08 was suppose to get 5hrs. I was lucky to get 3 when it was new. Before I sold it I got a little more than 2hr. That said my 13" MBP w/ SSD does it 6-7hrs. It really depends alot on how you use the laptop. Obviously if you have it on max brightness w/ a DVD playing its not going to last as long as if you are typing a document on half brightness.

Apple's sealed batteries are much better than the old replaceable ones. I freaked out at first when I heard they were going this direction, but it's been OK and really not an issue. The sealed battery in the iPad is amazing.

Also have you calibrated your battery? You need to do that once or twice to get peak performance.
 
oh... and external battery

Also if you need pseudo-replaceable external battery,
you can get one from HyperMac..
 
freeflow47 said:
turn your backlit keyboard off and your screen brightness down. I am getting over 11 hours of my new 13"
Click to expand...

What kind of apps are you running when you're getting over 11 hours? :)

I'm thinking about 13 inch for the very long battery life and the low price or the 15 inch due to it's performance.

If you are gettin 11 hours of battery life when doing regular stuff like surfing and making documents, I think I'll just get the cheap 13 inch :)
 
GregGebhardt said:
I used my new i7 15" for 6.5 hours on battery yesterday and had 30% left. I do turn the screen down and was just doing word processing and a little Photoshop but with care you could get 8 hours.

My car says it will get 28mpg on the sticker but if I run the piss out of it, I would expect less!

So should you!:eek:
Click to expand...

Can you test for me how much battery life you get when making documents and surfing at the same time? :)
 
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