Like others, I'm not getting good battery life. My first battery gave me a best read of 5:15 with everything off except for wifi and brightness at 50%. Apple replaced the battery, I've calibrated the new one like the first and it's reading 5:30. I can't even get it to show me 8 hours for a second which is really starting to piss me off. I doubt I have had two defective batteries so I'm wondering if my issue is hardware or software related. Should I try and get Apple to replace the computer? I realize Apples listed times are not 100% accurate, but an idle computer with nothing but safari open should read better than 5:30. Plus there are many people here listening much better battery times than mine so I know the exist.
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Next step for battery issue?
- Thread starter nconnella
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Why don't you actually time how long you can use your machine before it shuts off? As annoying as it is, just because the indicator says 5:30 remaining doesn't mean that's what you're going to get.
Be aware that Apple's advertised claims about battery life from a charge are based on very specific conditions, which are very likely less demanding than your normal use. (See footnote #1 at the bottom of this page.) Your actual battery life is greatly affected by screen brightness, application demands, drive usage, graphics demands, etc. Even if you're not getting anywhere near the advertised life from a charge, it's most likely quite normal, and simply the result of your usage demands.
That I'm aware of. In fact I read that foot note and tried to imitate it. I have made a specific effort to make sure ALL programs are closed except for one safari window on a non-flash website and my brightness at 50%. And I can't even get close to 8 hours. In fact I'm on minimal brightness now and it's reading 5:31. My bluetooth is off, everything is off so I don't see what Apple could be doing to get better life than me.
I may do that but I don't expect my battery indicator to be 3 hours off. Maybe half hour, even an hour but not three. Lets say it IS an hour off. That means my best time on a FULL charge doing absolute minimal tasks, is 6:30. Does that sound right?
The problem stems more from a common misunderstanding of how the battery remaining actually works. It's calculated based on usage at that particular point in time (the sampling rate is once every couple of minutes, I think). Thus, battery remaining can range from very little time (if you were doing something that requires a lot of power) to a very long time (if you were letting it idle). On a full charge I've seen everything from 40 minutes to 13 hours on the battery indicator depending on what I'm doing. It's just not very reliable.
Maybe you should switch to percent remaining instead. That's a little more telling as it's not based on some arbitrary sampling interval.