Questions about New 12" PB Battery Life

[Col127]

I just received my 12" PB yesterday from the Apple Canada store. I callibrated the battery already and I was wondering exactly how long I should expect my battery to last. I understand that Apple says it's a 5 hr battery life, but when I turned on my PB and let it sit there, it was only calculating about 2.5 hrs. Bluetooth and Airport extreme was off, there was no CD/DVD in the slot drive. No apps were running. Mind you, today was the first time I turned on my PB after callibration. But I'm thinking that that shouldn't matter to much.

What do you all think? Do I have a faulty battery?

 

[Marlon_JBT]

Normal Battery

Nope. Nothing is wrong. I can get anywhere from one hour, to the advertised 5 hours from my battery. It varies WIDELY.

Here's some tips... lower your screen contrast, lower your processing power, stick to dark desktop wallpapers, and SWITCH to the PERCENTAGE VIEWER! I cannot stress that enough, because the timer just sucks.

The CD-ROM doesn't use much power compared to the hard disk, or the display...correct me if I'm wrong.

To test this theory... track your battery. Turn the screen to the dimmest level, mute the speakers, turn BT and AE off, reduce processing power, and select a dark wallpaper. When you do this, your battery should drop about 3-4% every 15 minutes. I got my 12" PB on the 4th of July, so, it's still pretty fresh.

That reminds me. I never calibrated my battery until 10.2.8................

 

[yoda13]

I get about 3 hrs from mine and I have all of the power settings up high. But Bluetooth is off, however AE is on. Don't play a lot of iTunes without it plugged in and don't have a cd/dvd in drive normally unless I am plugged in

 

[QCassidy352]

you can't trust what it calculates. My ibook "calcuated" 2 hours 34 minutes when I first unplugged it yesterday, but after it had lost ~10% of the charge, it showed 2 hours 40 minutes remaining. I've gotten over 2 hours watching a DVD and had over 30% charge left when I was done, so clearly 2 hours 34 minutes while doing nothing is horribly inaccurate.

The only way to really test your battery is to use it. Don't believe what it calculates!

 

[Col127]

thanks for the information about the battery. i'll give it a try. how does apple exactly get those 5 hours they claim it gets? lowest setting with the screen, running no apps with lower processing power and everything?

seems kinda weird that they'd post a situation that no one would ever be in

i think i'm getting about 2 hours of life.. using a USB mouse, running with about half brightness... and using illustrator

is that about average?

 

[crazzyeddie]

Well... to give you some perspective, my 15" TiBook has been running for 2 hours as of now. I have been playing iTunes, browsing the web, played 15 minutes of games, and been messin with screen savers. Im using airport (no bluetooth built-in) and have screen at half brightness.

 

[crazzyeddie]

Just as an update, since i posted 10 min ago, my time has gone UP by 1 minute... So no, Apple's calculations are not correct. I would just call it a worst case number