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New MBP, only 4 hrs battery life?

B

bellapsyd

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 29, 2009
12
0
Hey guys, just wondering if this is something I should take the laptop in for? My (new) MBP (aluminum) is about a month old, but the battery has never lasted more than 4 hours fully charged. I know they advertise them for longer! I have AppleCare- do I call them?

13". no bluetooth on. No heavy anything open or running (just internet and typing in Word)

Sorry for being such a newbie. I guess I just wanted to see if this was normal and I was just overreacting or not. Advice appreciated!

Thanks!
 
What are you doing with the macbook during that time?

Also, download coconut battery and tell us what it says.





edit: Goldenmackid beat me to it. Don't you have anything better to do?!?! :p
 
ok DL coconut battery now- will report back.

I don't run any intensive apps. I usually only run Word for my dissertation! Apple mail is usually open, same with safari (no graphic intensive sights). Prowl gives me updates. and hmmm, ichat can be open sometimes too.


ahhh- but my screen is all the way bright. What's a good setting to switch it too?

13" screen
 
Yea screen brightness all the way up doesn't help battery life. Just put it at a comfortable setting. I usually have it around half wayish.
 
ok Coconut Battery-

says my current battery charge is 5461 mAh which is also the maximum. Current battery capacity is 5461 mAh and the original battery capacity was 5450 mAh. battery loadcycles- 25. age- 2 months (I haven't had it that long though?)

LOL_ i don't know what any of that means!
 
"Up to 7 hours of wireless productivity" on the current machines. That most likely means you have bluetooth turned off, the brightness turned down, and you are browsing the web. I would imagine it's some loose form of browsing as well (not a lot of flash, videos, whatever they used for testing to make that claim).

I would say that four hours is good depending on what you are doping. Especially if you are playing games, have every option turned on and the brightness turned to retina blinding, and also depending on which MBP you have (God I hate this.... Apple making the MBP forum that much larger here, and there being so many variables to determine whiche MBP one has...). If you have above the low-end 15" then you have a deticated video card that is using up battery power if not in use.
 
madog said:
"Up to 7 hours of wireless productivity" on the current machines. That most likely means you have bluetooth turned off, the brightness turned down, and you are browsing the web. I would imagine it's some loose form of browsing as well (not a lot of flash, videos, whatever they used for testing to make that claim).

I would say that four hours is good depending on what you are doping. Especially if you are playing games, have every option turned on and the brightness turned to retina blinding.
Click to expand...

^ LOL I do have the brightness up. Adjusting that for sure! No bluetooth. Made sure to turn that off right away. No games or anything. Just boring typing.


Ok, so this is nothing I should worry about? 4 hours is good then?
 
bellapsyd said:
Hey guys, just wondering if this is something I should take the laptop in for? My MBP (aluminum) is about a month old, but the battery has never lasted more than 4 hours fully charged. I know they advertise them for longer! I have AppleCare- do I call them?

13". no bluetooth on. No heavy anything open or running (just internet and typing in Word)

Sorry for being such a newbie. I guess I just wanted to see if this was normal and I was just overreacting or not. Advice appreciated!

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Sounds about right.
 
Do you have the newest MBP? You say a month old, so its probable you do but if you do have the older 13" Unibody 4 hours (max) is about right.

If you have a new one, you should get around 5 hours *real* use with the brightness at around 75% and you using a small set of apps which are not very processor intensive.

3G dongles, VMWare/Parallells, Large downloads, Mobile Me syncing etc etc all affect battery life significantly.
 
^ yup, new one.

I do use Mobile Me. I didn't know it impacted it s much. good to know!
 
bellapsyd said:
^ yup, new one.

I do use Mobile Me. I didn't know it impacted it s much. good to know!
Click to expand...

I suppose I should clarify - a large sync (like iDisk) can cause issues. A simple update to your bookmarks is unlikely to affect your battery life.

Also Time Machine will affect it a lot too.

Basically, you get 7 hours battery life if you do very little ;-)
 
bellapsyd said:
^ yup, new one.

I do use Mobile Me. I didn't know it impacted it s much. good to know!
Click to expand...

You can turn on "Activity Monitor" and let it show which apps use how much of the CPU. As an example, Office 2004 comes with a tool that checks for updates from time to time, and that tool can actually use 100% of your CPU time just to tell you that there are no updates available...
 
The seven hour time is if you have the screen brightness set to 10% and only look at the home screen with no applications open. Be happy you get 4 hours on the laptop. If you do any sorta of "pro" work the battery life drops through the floor. People that get 7 hours on these laptops are not doing any real work and are fine with barely being able to see their screen.
 
RealEvil said:
I suppose I should clarify - a large sync (like iDisk) can cause issues. A simple update to your bookmarks is unlikely to affect your battery life.

Also Time Machine will affect it a lot too.

Basically, you get 7 hours battery life if you do very little ;-)
Click to expand...

Does it really affect it that much to back up every hour?
 
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