Poll: What's your battery life?

[Rower_CPU]

Curious to see what kind of battery life people are getting, and if anyone in anywhere near Apple's "5 hour" claim.

Personally, my Tibook 400 on OS X gets about 3 hours.

PS. Anyone getting more battery life, please share any tweaks you've found helpful. Thanks.

 

[Taft]

Yep.

I get about the same on my TiBook 400 with OS X. Three hours is pretty good, but five would be spectacular.

Are you sure they claim 5 hours for the TiBook? I thought it was iBook.

Matthew

 

[Rower_CPU]

Re: Yep.

Originally posted by mrtrumbe
I get about the same on my TiBook 400 with OS X. Three hours is pretty good, but five would be spectacular.

Are you sure they claim 5 hours for the TiBook? I thought it was iBook.

Matthew

Double-checked it. They claim "up to 5 hours".

Here's the link: PowerBook Specs

 

[alex_ant]

3 hours seems to be pretty average for the 550MHz TiBook. I once got 2:15 in OS X with heavy CPU usage, bright backlight and accessing lots of CD-ROMs.

I once achieved 4:45 in OS 9, with the backlight low, processor cycling on, the hard disk set to spin down after 5 minutes, and the machine almost completely idle with the exception of a little bit of web browsing.

I do feel that the 5 hour claim is deceptive, especially since OS X is now the default OS. Even 4 hours is stretching it. If Apple said "UP TO" 5 hours of battery life, that might be okay, but they don't. They ought to say "2 to 5 hours depending on usage" or something to that extent. I don't really care, though, because 3 hours is plenty for me.

I hope processor cycling is an option in 10.2. It not only increases battery life but it also makes the TiBook a bit less warm, and thus makes that goddamned fan come on a bit less.

Alex

 

[alex_ant]

Okay, sorry, Apple does in fact advertise "up to" 5 hours. My bad - cancel whatever I just said about them not saying that.

Alex

 

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by alex_ant
3 hours seems to be pretty average for the 550MHz TiBook. I once got 2:15 in OS X with heavy CPU usage, bright backlight and accessing lots of CD-ROMs.

I once achieved 4:45 in OS 9, with the backlight low, processor cycling on, the hard disk set to spin down after 5 minutes, and the machine almost completely idle with the exception of a little bit of web browsing.

I do feel that the 5 hour claim is deceptive, especially since OS X is now the default OS. Even 4 hours is stretching it. If Apple said "UP TO" 5 hours of battery life, that might be okay, but they don't. They ought to say "2 to 5 hours depending on usage" or something to that extent. I don't really care, though, because 3 hours is plenty for me.

I hope processor cycling is an option in 10.2. It not only increases battery life but it also makes the TiBook a bit less warm, and thus makes that goddamned fan come on a bit less.

Alex

I agree. The current "Energy Saver" options in System Prefs are pretty meager, and have absolutely no special options for laptops. A must-have option in 10.2.

 

[eyelikeart]

I can generally get enough to watch a 1.5-2 hour dvd...

or I can listen to music & surf the net for nearly 3....

or depending on what type of work I'm doing....can get anywhere from 2-3.5....

 

[Rower_CPU]

Who the heck voted for more than 5 hours?!?

I'd be really interested in seeing how anyone gets that kind of time.

 

[kishba]

on a pismo you can can get > 5 hours (like my friend does) if you have 2 batteries

i wish i had a second battery for my pismo

 

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by kishba
on a pismo you can can get > 5 hours (like my friend does) if you have 2 batteries

i wish i had a second battery for my pismo

That's right, I forgot about that one.

How about anyone with newer iBooks and TiBooks, especially if you're running X?

BTW, I turned down the display brightness to around 50%, and I've gained about an hour, putting me around 4 hours.

 

[mymemory]

The same thing with my Pismo, 5 ours plus with 2 bateries (I told you Pismos rules)

 

[eyelikeart]

Originally posted by mymemory
Venezuela is a better place now... TO TEST NUCLEAR BOMBS!!!

I'm going with the assumption u aren't very happy where u are?