Real World Battery Life of Macbook Pro (Feb 2012)?

[Whalensdad]

Apple lists "up to 7 hrs" on the Macbook Pro (Feb 2012) Non-Retina. What are people seeing in real world use?

 

[GGJstudios]

Apple lists "up to 7 hrs" on the Macbook Pro (Feb 2012) Non-Retina. What are people seeing in real world use?

It varies greatly between users, depending on the workload and configuration in use, but you should expect less than 7 hours, as Apple's test conditions are very likely less demanding than your real-world usage.

There are many factors that impact your battery life. See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details, including tips on how to maximize your battery life.

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The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ​

 

[Whalensdad]

I don't have one, yet. I wanted to see what I could expect based on what others are seeing.

 

[GGJstudios]

I don't have one, yet. I wanted to see what I could expect based on what others are seeing.

One user could be getting 2.5 hours on average, while another gets 5. That won't give you a realistic expectation. It's better to start with what you intend to use your computer for, what apps you expect to have running, what screen brightness is most comfortable for you, etc. If you could find someone running the same mix of apps, the same screen brightness and other settings, that person's usage may be more apt to be similar to what you can expect. The variance is great enough that simply knowing how many hours they're getting is useless information. It would be like asking what gas mileage everyone is getting, without asking what car model and configuration, what driving and maintenance habits, what location, etc. It could be 8 MPG or 48 MPG, neither of which may be anything close to what you might get.

 

[Whalensdad]

I'm looking for the full range of what people are seeing so I can form my own conclusions.

 

[Weaselboy]

I'm looking for the full range of what people are seeing so I can form my own conclusions.

There are some battery test results in this review from Anandtech supporting the seven hours Apple claims.

Here is the relevant excerpt from the review:

Battery life is pretty solid – we got a bit over 7 hours in our light web browsing test (with dynamic GPU switching on), a hair over 6 with dynamic GPU switching off (forcing the GPU to stay on), close to 5.5 hours in our medium-heavy browsing workload, and a bit over 2 hours in our brutal, heavy use case test (which adds a 1MB/s file transfer and a looping 1080p video to our heavy browsing test). Apple quotes 7 hours of “normal” use, and that’s about right based on my standard usage – if you use your notebook for light browsing and word processing with medium levels of brightness, you’ll get at least 7 hours if not a bit more. Obviously, once you start hitting the dGPU hard, it’ll die pretty quickly, but at least GPU efficiency has improved enough that just leaving the GPU on in light workloads doesn’t run down the battery too much.

Just personal experience with my last few Apple portables is the advertised battery life is right on target. Apple does not seem to be fudging the numbers.

 

[Whalensdad]

There are some battery test results in this review from Anandtech supporting the seven hours Apple claims.

Here is the relevant excerpt from the review:



Just personal experience with my last few Apple portables is the advertised battery life is right on target. Apple does not seem to be fudging the numbers.

Thanks for the link and the input. I appreciate it