Ques. for a newbie - batteries *suedo-poll*

[Mac|Photo]

I was just curious if users out there can post some real-life times for the battery life of their various setups for iBooks and PBooks (make sure to include screensize and any other power-hog hardware that differs from stock pls).

I am getting ready to switch over soon and have been trying to figure this out. Any and all information is welcome and appreciated.

TIA

 

[armandocerna]

On my 12" ibook I get around 4.5-5 hours with the brightness all the way down and aiport and bluetooth on. The screen brightness is the main key I set it to one notch if I am inside and I can see it perfectly fine. If I have the laptop plugged in then I turn the brightness all the way up. If you are outside it does get a little hard to see the screen if the brightness is all the way down. I hardly ever go outside with my ibook anyway though.

 

[RBMaraman]

I have a 12" iBook G3 500mhz with 256MB of RAM. This machine is 3.5 years old. It still has the original battery.

With Airport on and brightness at full I get.........

4.5 HOURS!!!! That's right! 4.5 HOURS out of a 3.5 year old battery!

 

[superbovine]

i think if you search the forums, you will find your answer.

 

[Mac|Photo]

I did do a search on the forums and I didn't find anything quite like this so I thought I would still post....
Thanks for the responses thus far..anyone with a PB have any data?

 

[blackfox]

Not to sidestep your question, but if you are concerned about potential battery-life, you can:

a. Buy an extended-life battery from somewhere like OWC, which performs 25-40% better than a stock Apple battery. You will also have two batteries.

b. Take heart that battery technology is improving and that any new tech that comes out in the near future will most likely be available for current models. Also, if you are not buying a machine in the near-future, next generation PB's (or iBooks) may be designed to draw less power for many tasks.

My old PB (pismo) acheived around 4.5 hrs of battery life in most instances. After 4.5 years, however, the original battery died. I ended up taking suggestion (a) and operate my PB with dual-batteries (I also bought a regular replacement). I get around 6-7 hours with a G4 upgrade chip.

 

[Mechcozmo]

My PowerBook 12" Rev. C gets 5:30 with no Airport, no Bluetooth, and screen all the way down. Still very usable at that brightness, IMO.

I get ~5:20 with Bluetooth on, no Airport and screen down.

I get ~4:30 with Bluetooth and Airport on and screen 1/4 of the way up.

And around 5 hours, give or take a few minutes, with Airport on and screen turned down.

I usually work with my screen turned down, because I can see it quite well and it is not that bad to work with. I beat all of my Windoze friends at battery life. They get ~3 hours. I get almost double that. Plus I have a much better computer. And that makes up for the extra 30 minutes that are missing.

 

[varmit]

ibook 600mhz g3, with my new battery, I can get about 6+ hours with moderate amount of use. That is bright screen and Airport running and only surfing or using a program every once in awhile. And with entensive use, like tonight, got home and started surfing at about 6 and its almost 10, and I still have 30% left. I get about 5 hours.

 

[Mechcozmo]

Just noticed:

"pseudo" is the correct spelling in this thread's title.

Use OS X's built in spell checker! Edit->Spelling->Check as you type

Handy dandy thing, that OS X...

 

[Mac|Photo]

Use OS X's built in spell checker! Edit->Spelling->Check as you type
Handy dandy thing, that OS X...

I hvae no OS X cusae I hvae no Mac!!! Thanks for the recommendation, I'm working on getting to the point where I can spellcheck myself with a Mac

 

[40167]

I hvae no OS X cusae I hvae no Mac!!! Thanks for the recommendation, I'm working on getting to the point where I can spellcheck myself with a Mac

Well ya could run osx on the pc with pearpc... but its rather slow.

 

[mkrishnan]

I just wanted to comment that you tend to get a lot of outliers with polls like this...or erm pseudo-polls or whatever. That is, more people respond cuz either they get phenomenal battery life or they get terrible life. So YMMV...

Anyway, I suppose I'm in the latter group. I got curious about it and ran X-Check for a couple of weeks to find out. My typical use profile at that time was to leave a lot of apps running in the background (Adium, Mail, AdBk, iCal, Safari, iTunes, and MS Word.X at that time), full brightness, mixed AE and BT use, and a good amount of sleep/waking during the discharge cycle. I got about 3.4 hours on average, or maybe 3.6-3.7 if you factor out the charge lost during sleep. I get low fours with the light turned down to minimum. Also processor set to reduced when on battery. I don't think I've ever broken 5.

Ahhh, at least I get gas mileage out of my cars on the high end of the prediction, usually.

Edit: oops, if you don't look in my profile, iBook G4/800/12"/640MB/AE/BT, bought in December 03.

 

[Logik]

1.33ghz 15" pb stock other than 768mb ram

screen at 1 notch, bluetooth off, airport on, roughly 3 hours 20-30 minutes

no idea without airport on because i have never had my powerbook anywhere away from wireless.

 

[KD7IWP]

15" 1.5 ghz

I get on average about 2.5-3 hours when I'm sitting in the library doing homework. That is minor web browsing, Word, emails etc... I have airport on. This pBook has specs as shown in signature. Battery life goes down DRASTICALLY if playing a game or anything graphic intensive. But when you are done playing a game, the battery life goes back up a little bit when you go back to regular activities. My two cents.

 

[cluthz]

Powerbook 12-inch

4:00-4:30 Airport ON, BT OFF, Screen ~40% brightness. Running text editor, terminal and mozilla.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I don't own a PowerBook currently, but I used to own one - so I thought I'd pass some information along regarding battery life. Anything that makes the CD/DVD drive spin will be a huge drain on the battery. For that reason I recommend the following solution:

1. Make disk images of the CDs/DVDs you use often and mount the disk image instead of inserting the CD/DVD.
2. Since notebook hard drives aren't all that big, I'd get an external drive and store the disk images on that, copying only the ones you need over to your laptop's hard drive when you're on the go.

Your battery will thank you for it!