Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

New MBP 13" - battery Qs, and home/end

R

ryans79

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 12, 2009
226
0
Hi,

While on a recent visit to the US I picked up my first brand new Mac, a 13" MBP, before this as some might remember i had a second hand white MB.

One of the main reasons I picked this up was that it was advertised as a 7hr battery.. and a lot of people said if you lower the brightness etc you can even get 8+, a whole day of work on a laptop with a single charge was too good to pass by and according to the Apple site it was tested with half screen brightness and half keyboard brightness with the wireless network on.

My old MB used to give me around 5hrs... but i find this gives me around 5.45 to 6hrs... to test this i charged it completely then put off the screensaver, set the keyboard and screen lighting to 50% and left it untouched till the battery died...i got ~6.30 (give or take a couple mins), I feel a bit duped, can i take it back to apple or something to change the battery? its less than a month old. Or will this "right itself" after a few more charges?

Other than that I love the way this is built... good solid feel, backlit keyboard etc...

one last question, how do you go to the beginning or end of a line when you are typing it? my last keyboard had a home and end arrow key but I cant find it on this one (the last keyboard was a Swedish one, this is a US one)

Thanks!
Ryan
 
Apple battery run times are usually overly exaggerated. I bought the original unibody when it came out. I think they advertised 5-6 hours batter life. I can surf the net and check mail for a good 90% of that 5-6 hours, but if I load up say Logic pro and start to record some audio, my battery will go from full to drained in a little over an hour.
 
In regards to both previous posters...

The times they post, if you phone up they will tell you it is generally 'Upto 7 Hours' Many factors affect these.
 
Hey guys,
Thanks for replying!

JoelKelly said:
In regards to both previous posters...

The times they post, if you phone up they will tell you it is generally 'Upto 7 Hours' Many factors affect these.
Click to expand...

Like what in this case? I was not using the comp at all... no back ground programs running either, i just put it on and left it like that till it died.
 
ryans79 said:
....
one last question, how do you go to the beginning or end of a line when you are typing it? my last keyboard had a home and end arrow key but I cant find it on this one (the last keyboard was a Swedish one, this is a US one)

Thanks!
Ryan
Click to expand...

You can go to the beginning and end of a line, while editing text in some program, by pressing the up and down key. Have a look at how it works out with those keys.
Also Cmd + Up/Down arrow key will get you farther, but only when viewing pages. The cursor stays where it is.

Also the 13-inch MBP (ca. 5000 mAh) has not much more battery power than the old white MB (ca. 4400 mAh). I think there is a maximum difference of 1000 mAh, so 6 and a half hours do seem about right.

I get around 5 and a half hours with my 17-inch (12/3000 mAh), when viewing websites or even watching some television with it, and it has three times the capacity of the old MB.
 
ryans79 said:
Hey guys,
Thanks for replying!



Like what in this case? I was not using the comp at all... no back ground programs running either, i just put it on and left it like that till it died.
Click to expand...

Doing what you were doing, the Macbook should've went for as long as 8+ hours however did you check to see if Spotlight was indexing your drive? If so then that would drain your battery quick.
 
HLdan said:
Doing what you were doing, the Macbook should've went for as long as 8+ hours however did you check to see if Spotlight was indexing your drive? If so then that would drain your battery quick.
Click to expand...

Im a PC guy and still kind of new to the Mac, i have no idea if spotlight was indexing the drive, i dont mind redoing the test, is there anyway to turn "spotlight" off? (no idea what spotlight does... is it that box on top for search?)
Also would like to turn off the light sensor because it was making the screen extremely dim (like 2 or 3 "blocks" in stead of half the total number of blocks - and still it died early)
 
ryans79 said:
Im a PC guy and still kind of new to the Mac, i have no idea if spotlight was indexing the drive, i dont mind redoing the test, is there anyway to turn "spotlight" off? (no idea what spotlight does... is it that box on top for search?)
Also would like to turn off the light sensor because it was making the screen extremely dim (like 2 or 3 "blocks" in stead of half the total number of blocks - and still it died early)
Click to expand...

Spotlight is the system search feature. You'll see it in the Menu Bar up top to the far right. Looks like a magnifying glass. Click it and you can perform searches. Spotlight is very useful and you don't want to disable it as it will find just about anything on your Mac and is useful for launching apps and works as dictionary and calculator.
It has to index your drive every now and then to check for new software so your search results are effective.
When it's indexing you'll see a small dot glowing inside the magnifying glass.
You can temporarily disable it for testing but if you're new to Mac I wouldn't recommend it until you know the Mac OS pretty well. It requires a UNIX terminal command and if you don't know what you're doing you can screwup your configuration. Anyways here's the link if you are willing to do it. You can re-enable it afterwards. http://osxdaily.com/2007/03/22/how-to-completely-disable-spotlight/.

The screen sensor can be disabled by going into System Preferences-Displays, uncheck "automatically adjust brightness as ambient light changes".
 
HLdan said:
It requires a UNIX terminal command and if you don't know what you're doing you can screwup your configuration. Anyways here's the link if you are willing to do it. You can re-enable it afterwards. http://osxdaily.com/2007/03/22/how-to-completely-disable-spotlight/.

The screen sensor can be disabled by going into System Preferences-Displays, uncheck "automatically adjust brightness as ambient light changes".
Click to expand...

Thank you, I'm a programmer in the PC world so i am used to fiddling with consoles so i think i should be ok following the instructions there... if thing do go sour i have you guys here for help - and nothing all that important on the Mac right now anyway, its too new so a reinstall wouldnt be the end of the world for me.

Thanks for your help again guys!

One last question, do you think i take it to the apple service center they will replace the battery after i do everything and it still gives me that horrorable life?
I've heard a lot of fanbois (no offense meant) over the years praise apple over MS and others but have never experienced it myself-and since i used to build my own PCs never really took anything to the shop for fixing.
 
Well seeing as most people including myself get more than 7 hours on medium screen settings and basic websurfing then I would have Apple address this or see about exchanging the computer if it's within 14 days. Now, the fact that you are getting at least 5 hours from a 7 hour battery (even with doing just nothing) Apple might argue that this is normal based on environmental operating temperatures and such.
 
ryans79 said:
One last question, do you think i take it to the apple service center they will replace the battery after i do everything and it still gives me that horrorable life?
Click to expand...

No, I think if you go, they'll tell you that it's "Within spec", and tell you there's nothing they can do. Then when they do that, ask to see what the specs are, which is is supposedly within :p
 
it might also be due to problems with your charging cycles etc. When i used to charge my laptop willy-nilly, and the leave it plugged in for 3 days i would find it only lasts for 1-2 hours or so, (i have the early 08 model, but my point still counts) Now i try to discharge the laptop battery as regularly every month as possible- i.e once a month, it lasts alot more reliably for around 4 hours i find.

So i would suggest charging/discharging regularly your battery as this might help. Also i downloaded a small app called coconut battery which has helped me no end, in maintaining my battery power amounts n that :)

PTP
 
I am sitting here on my new mbp13 and I it says 7:05 with 95% left with a little under half brightness and light browsing
 
With just iTunes and Firefox open I've had my MBP 13" show this at the lowest brightness:
 

Attachments

  • Picture 1.png
    Picture 1.png
    794.3 KB · Views: 176
Heres a slight prob... i picked this up in the States (LA)
and brought it back home (Stockholm - Sweden).... so even though its about 14 days i cant really take it back to the original place...

Advise please.
 
I was just about to make a thread about this issue...
I have a MBP 15', and right now i have 90% of my battery left, and its giving me about 5 hours 34 minutes. I have keyboard backlight turned off and my screen brightness is less than half. On their website they advertise 7 hours for fully charged battery. Is this normal? I only have MSN and firefox running atm.

Also, is there a way i can use direct AC power rather than charge battery when i am connected. For example, when I know i am not going to be using my battery for next 2 days, I don't need to constantly charge my battery, because on apple website, it says the battery life is only up to 1000 charges.
 
Avicenna said:
Also, is there a way i can use direct AC power rather than charge battery when i am connected. For example, when I know i am not going to be using my battery for next 2 days, I don't need to constantly charge my battery, because on apple website, it says the battery life is only up to 1000 charges.
Click to expand...

This part i think i can answer (although feel free to correct me if i am wrong guys - as i am new to Apple stuff) you cant really take out the battery like older models because this is screwed in unlike "normal" laptops.. but i guess if you really want the hassle you can open it up with a screwdriver and take out the battery.
Personally i'll let apple screw me over here rather than keep opening the back and taking out the battery to save on a charge or two.
On a side (but related note): Anybody have any prices for replacement batteries?

Also, tried to do the home and end keys (see original post above) and its weird... on text edit its control arrow and here in FF its command arrow.
 
ryans79 said:
This part i think i can answer (although feel free to correct me if i am wrong guys - as i am new to Apple stuff) you cant really take out the battery like older models because this is screwed in unlike "normal" laptops.. but i guess if you really want the hassle you can open it up with a screwdriver and take out the battery.
Personally i'll let apple screw me over here rather than keep opening the back and taking out the battery to save on a charge or two.
On a side (but related note): Anybody have any prices for replacement batteries?
Click to expand...

Well they use tamper resistant screws now so good luck trying to unscrew it. Even if you could remove the battery, the computer would be stuck with less cpu power, see here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2332

I'm pretty sure all replacement batteries are $129 no matter what kind it is.
 
cjacks68 said:
Even if you could remove the battery, the computer would be stuck with less cpu power, see here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2332

I'm pretty sure all replacement batteries are $129 no matter what kind it is.
Click to expand...

Ahhh! Useful bit of info that i didnt know of... thanks!

As for batteries... i think we can safely add 25% for people on my side of the pond..

Another reason why Americans should not complain about any prices :D
(and if any try to do so on this thread, come on over and buy some gas at Euro rates then i dare you to complain)
 
Dude, alot of things can have an impact on your battery life. 50% brightness? Lower the brightness and it will be better for battery, turn off the keyboard lighting, bad wireless router with low signal strength will make your computer use more battery to keep the connection.

Spotlight indexing and such will also have an impact.

I am happy with the battery, Coconut battery tells me I have a capacity of 5569 mAh, my old unibody macbook had 4200 mAh.

When I just had gotten my new MBP 13" yesterday I charged it full, then I unplugged and did copying from my external drive, installed alot of programs, did some gaming that used 50% CPU, and did surfing while doing all this, also I guess spotlight did some indexing. Anyhow, I used it for around 5 hours during these conditions, it was evening so quite dark, so the brightness was automatically dimmed.

After these 5 hours of installing, gaming, surfing, alot of using the drive for copying a few gigs from external drives and such (also used a wireless mouse), I still had 20% of my battery left. It is ALOT better then the old unibody Macbook I had ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back