New MP Unibody PRO 15" Battery Life Not Good!

[kp98072]

Hi everyone, i just got a new Unibody MB PRO 15" two days ago. Here is my typical battery life and assumptions, let me know if you have the same or if there are tips to get better battery life:

--i have backlit screen off
--I have only the one graphics processor (better battery life) on
--Bluetooth off
--auto dimming screen lighting


I am only getting about 3 hours max.

Any tips or experience here?



thanks

 

[sal]

is the computer working on something? (Rendering, compressing, etc)

I get about 5 hours if all I am doing is surfing the web. Get less than 5 if I the laptop is working on something.

 

[kp98072]

is the computer working on something? (Rendering, compressing, etc)

I get about 5 hours if all I am doing is surfing the web. Get less than 5 if I the laptop is working on something.

sorry dont know what you mean by is the computer working on something.. such as rendering.... how do i tell? thanks!

 

[scuzy]

have you condition your battery? My new macbook pro arrive monday and i am cycling the battery right now.

 

[ViciousShadow21]

sorry dont know what you mean by is the computer working on something.. such as rendering.... how do i tell? thanks!

he means are you doing anything that takes a lot of CPU and/or graphic (GPU) processing. ie. ripping a CD, editing images or video, ect ect

 

[nazuk]

Hi everyone, i just got a new Unibody MB PRO 15" two days ago. Here is my typical battery life and assumptions, let me know if you have the same or if there are tips to get better battery life:

--i have backlit screen off
--I have only the one graphics processor (better battery life) on
--Bluetooth off
--auto dimming screen lighting


I am only getting about 3 hours max.

Any tips or experience here?



thanks

You need to Calibrate your battery.

Please read:

http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

and

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

 

[kp98072]

have you condition your battery? My new macbook pro arrive monday and i am cycling the battery right now.

NO how do you condition your battery??

 

[kp98072]

he means are you doing anything that takes a lot of CPU and/or graphic (GPU) processing. ie. ripping a CD, editing images or video, ect ect

Oh, NO none of that..just internet mainly

 

[Patriks7]

Oh, NO none of that..just internet mainly

Could you be more specific? Cause Safari(/Firefox/Camino/Opera or w/e you use) can end up being pretty CPU intensive depending on the sites.

 

[kp98072]

Could you be more specific? Cause Safari(/Firefox/Camino/Opera or w/e you use) can end up being pretty CPU intensive depending on the sites.

Always use Safari, good example is i was on this site for two hours, then one hour on my outook web based email. i did intall all of the software updates this morning so hopefully that willhelp. Also, is there a way to findout once the battery is near dead how much use you got out of that charge? thanks for the help....

 

[redsteven]

sounds like you need some nuts

http://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/

 

[Abstract]

I get about 5 hours if all I am doing is surfing the web.

Yeah, reviews show around the same. If you simply surf the web (1 tab open) and go to a new webpage every 20 seconds, you get around 5 hours of battery life.

If you do a lot more, you get around 3 to 3.5 hours.

 

[FinalCutJay]

Hi everyone, i just got a new Unibody MB PRO 15" two days ago. Here is my typical battery life and assumptions, let me know if you have the same or if there are tips to get better battery life:

--i have backlit screen off
--I have only the one graphics processor (better battery life) on
--Bluetooth off
--auto dimming screen lighting


I am only getting about 3 hours max.

Any tips or experience here?

thanks

It's unfortunate but i'm glad to see others having the same issue. I brought my Unibody MBP to the Genius Bar and they basically told me there is nothing wrong with my MBP.

I use my machine on Best Performance, usually with screen brightness at about 3 from lowest and backlight off. Even idling i get about 1% battery life per minute of use.

So i bring this machine to the store show the guy and sure enough the 5 minutes i'm in the store it drops from 95% to 90. The so called genius bar tech proceeds to tell me that it's because i'm using it on best performance.

you're telling me better battery life gets you 4 hours and best performance gets you 90 minutes?

 

[txnoob]

All companies quote their battery life using the most modest settings. So running a machine on best performance with typical brightness and actually doing processor and graphics related work, will SIGNIFICANTLY shorten battery life.

Just think how I feel with a 17" screen on my windows notebook with a desktop processory. If I get 90 minutes at all I'm happy! LOL. That said my 5 year old IBM Thinkpad, w/ Pentium M 1.6 and 15" screen still gets almost 3 hours on the original battery. I love that laptop and will cry the day it dies. It flies on XP w/ 1GB of Ram.

I would work on conditioning the batter as recommended.

 

[sal]

Could you be more specific? Cause Safari(/Firefox/Camino/Opera or w/e you use) can end up being pretty CPU intensive depending on the sites.

for example, flash.

flash is known to eat up a lot of cpu cycles and that can drain your battery pretty quickly.

 

[aarcarr]

You can try looking in system profiler and see your battery status. You can also use istatpro to keep track of your battery cycles and battery "health". It really helps to know if the battery is going bad this soon

 

[stylinexpat]

I have a SSD in mine and still don't get much battery life. My old Macbook got better battery life than the new Macbook Pro.