So actual battery life for the new Air isn't anything like the advertised specs, huh?

[thundersteele]

It is even better than advertised:

13 hours and 29 minutes. That’s all you really need to know — that’s how long the new MacBook Air running Safari lasted running The Verge Battery Test, which cycles through a series of websites and images at 65 percent brightness. Run time in Chrome was shorter, at 11 hours and 29 minutes, but both are still ridiculously impressive. In fact, it’s the record for a laptop running our test without an external battery.

You can find other reviews finding the same. However I wouldn't be surprised if actual use drops it to 8-9 hours for many users (including me). This is not a problem. As a comparison, I know how to get the advertised 7 hours out of my MBP - but if I work normally and don't cut on battery usage, it is closer to 5 hours.

 

[luisito]

13 hours non stop using the computer? or 13 hours leaving the computer idle for periods of time?

Haha.

I get 13 hours usually broken into 3 periods of time. Taking into account the energy consumption that it takes to power it up again.. I should get a longer time if I got non-stop; if I were to do a non stop here at the forums, I would probably get 20+ hrs. Everytime that I spend 1 hr browsing and responding here at the forums, the battery shows me 20+ hrs of life, as it calculates how much energy I am spending.

This is a nice machine, the new processors do improve the battery life dramatically, even if you were to get 8 hrs straight doing heavier work it is a win situation in my opinion.

The battery is as described. Until the fan kicks on and you really work it. Then it lessens.....drastically.

Interesting. Makes sense.

I've been using this thing for 2 weeks and still haven't heard fans spinning. This machine is fanless!! Lol.. I think that the lower energy consumption by the processor make this nifty machine produce less heat as well. My computer is always cool to the touch anywhere you grab it.

 

[falconeight]

Haha.

I get 13 hours usually broken into 3 periods of time. Taking into account the energy consumption that it takes to power it up again.. I should get a longer time if I got non-stop; if I were to do a non stop here at the forums, I would probably get 20+ hrs. Everytime that I spend 1 hr browsing and responding here at the forums, the battery shows me 20+ hrs of life, as it calculates how much energy I am spending.

This is a nice machine, the new processors do improve the battery life dramatically, even if you were to get 8 hrs straight doing heavier work it is a win situation in my opinion.



Interesting. Makes sense.

I've been using this thing for 2 weeks and still haven't heard fans spinning. This machine is fanless!! Lol.. I think that the lower energy consumption by the processor make this nifty machine produce less heat as well. My computer is always cool to the touch anywhere you grab it.

Convert a video. It's will kick on and the battery will die in 5 hours

 

[techn0lady]

What a manufacturer has optimized the way the system works in order to maximize marketing battery time figures ?? !

OMG! WTF ???

(Spoiler alert: Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are made up too)

P.S> If you're ever in the need for a car please let me know. Please.

 

[falconeight]

What a manufacturer has optimized the way the system works in order to maximize marketing battery time figures ?? !

OMG! WTF ???

(Spoiler alert: Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are made up too)

P.S> If you're ever in the need for a car please let me know. Please.

I would say that apple is usually spot on with its test. Its still early and I bet the norm will be right on.

 

[tqbao27]

I got around 7 hours of watching videos on youtube.

 

[luisito]

Convert a video. It's will kick on and the battery will die in 5 hours

Too bad I don't know how to do that. Haha.

I would say that apple is usually spot on with its test. Its still early and I bet the norm will be right on.

Yep yep.
Perhaps, a touch up on the code that manages the "time remaining" could probably show more stable numbers, but perhaps is not even necessary, I am just saying.

 

[racer1441]

I'm getting 13 to 15 hours on a charge on the 13 inch air.

 

[2IS]

Yep, it is far better because you and apple say it is ......

No, it's actually better because it lasts longer.

 

[PDFierro]

Everything I've read indicates the battery life either matches or exceeds Apple's estimates. You can't go off a few people's battery life numbers, especially when that was probably heavy usage.

 

[Jefe's MacAir]

My battery life seems to be improving. And it was good from the get go. i7,8g

I got a solid 8+ hrs including two full length HD movies streaming from Netflix on cable internet on day one.

I'm thinking there's a lot of downloading of everything from app updates to cloud info the first few days. When this settles down as it catches up to all the updates you start using less CPU and get longer 'normal' usage. I kept Activity Monitor opened for awhile and this seemed to be going on in the background. I'm not a tech so it's only a guess.

 

[NewbieCanada]

has anyone tried it on Mavericks yet?

 

[gnasher729]

So you have honestly been getting 12 hours of USAGE out of the 13 inch? That's great to know (I'll be getting mine soon). I'm just not fine with people going "well yeah but 8 hours is still a lot" because if it should be around 12 hours, a 33% drop is unacceptable.

"It should be around 12 hours" is nonsense. Battery usage depends on what you are doing. Turn the brightness up or down, and you use more or less energy and have less or more battery life. Plug in an iPad and charge it - energy moves directly from the MBA battery to the iPad battery and battery life is shortened. That's just common sense. Connecting an external monitor takes power and reduces battery life - but that is a situation where the MBA is stationary and should be connected to power.

 

[vistadude]

I don't think anyone knows how to use activity monitor. I have only a web browser open, and over 40 things show up in activity monitor.

People who report poor battery life also don't understand how to use activity monitor and keep checks on their CPU usage.

 

[Sym0]

I decided to buy my wife the older model 13" (obviously it was 30% cheaper than the new one, and 10% cheaper than the new 11") and we are getting 7.5 hours from it with usual wife browsing.

By that I mean internet, facebook, photos and general socialising and window shopping.

While I type this my rMBP is telling me 8.5hours as I am just idling and browsing. Thats pretty good considering the screen is the main power draw for most laptops when everything else is idling.

 

[Mrbobb]

I'm just not fine with people going "well yeah but 8 hours is still a lot" because if it should be around 12 hours, a 33% drop is unacceptable.

If you can find a longer-lasting laptop, BUY IT.

Simple.

 

[Vidivici]

The battery life always depends on the usage .
If you really want to test it , disable wifi, bluetooth, keyboard lighting.
Dont do stuff on flash , don't render and set screen brigthness to max 50%

Then you will get 10-12 hours battery life on the 13"

 

[Oivalf]

I've been getting around 13 hours on my 13". It all depends on what you are doing an all the strain that you put on the components.

I've been only doing light work and watching an occasional 20 minute youtube video.

I only recharge the battery every other day, my last session lasted 4 hrs and the battery went down from 20% to 6%. What else can I ask for when my machine is giving me 4 hours of work per 14% of battery?

Sometime I even get readings a little bit higher than 20 hours. Right now I am at 65% and is marking me 11:53 hrs remaining. Pretty sick!

That's pretty cool. I want to buy a MBA with the exact same configuration: 8gb and 256gb. Happy to know that I will get up to 13 hours of battery life. Thanks.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

People are reporting about 5 hours on the 11' and 8-8.5 hours on the '13. That's not even close to those "miraculous" times reported by Apple and tech reviewers. What's up with that?

PC Mag reports it got 15 hours out of the 13". As always battery life depends on how use use the machine. If you have it on max brightness, BT on when not needed, and you are constantly hammering the SSD, like watching a video, then sure it's not going to get 12 hours. But if you have it under min acceptable brightness, turn off battery sucking features that are not needed you'll do fine.

 

[Ctrl2k]

The battery is as described. Until the fan kicks on and you really work it. Then it lessens.....drastically.

This is true. I have the 13/i7/512.8GB 2013 model and it gets a solid 8-10 hours doing light work.

Run the "Heaven" benchmark to stress that GPU or run the CPU full blast nd you'll get 3 hours max.

An iPad, iPhone, all the old laptops are all the same way however. This isn't unexpected; you only get long battery life if you're not hitting the CPU hard.

The Haswell tech essentially makes it easier for the CPU to downclock and shut down when doing minimal work. Ivy Bridge and earlier chips aren't as effective at this. It's in the idle periods (which can be as short as a few seconds here and there but can really add up) where Haswell really shines. At full blast it isn't any more power efficient than the older model CPUs.

All of that said, it's possible to do some serious work for a few hours like video editing (not rendering out... that will kill battery) and maybe play some video and write emails and surf and still get a solid 6-7 hours out of it, which is mighty impressive for such a workload.

I also tested just basic web surfing with about 30 minutes of hard GPU benchmarks and still got 9 hours.

 

[falconeight]

This is true. I have the 13/i7/512.8GB 2013 model and it gets a solid 8-10 hours doing light work.

Run the "Heaven" benchmark to stress that GPU or run the CPU full blast nd you'll get 3 hours max.

An iPad, iPhone, all the old laptops are all the same way however. This isn't unexpected; you only get long battery life if you're not hitting the CPU hard.

The Haswell tech essentially makes it easier for the CPU to downclock and shut down when doing minimal work. Ivy Bridge and earlier chips aren't as effective at this. It's in the idle periods (which can be as short as a few seconds here and there but can really add up) where Haswell really shines. At full blast it isn't any more power efficient than the older model CPUs.

All of that said, it's possible to do some serious work for a few hours like video editing (not rendering out... that will kill battery) and maybe play some video and write emails and surf and still get a solid 6-7 hours out of it, which is mighty impressive for such a workload.

I also tested just basic web surfing with about 30 minutes of hard GPU benchmarks and still got 9 hours.

And with you statement this thread should be officially answered and closed. ROCK ON!

 

[shenan1982]

The tone and wording the OP uses indicates he's trying to make him\herself feel better about not be able to afford or get the new model. I went from the 2012 to the 2013 and went from 3.5 hours to 8+ ... I'd say that's pretty remarkable.... but if I were trying to convince myself otherwise, I'd likely post on her bashing that it's 8.5 instead of 9 hours too, haha

 

[JoEw]

Compared to some other PC vendor estimates Apples seem realistic for the average user. Gotta remember a lot of people are not gaming on macs airs nor rendering video.

 

[gnasher729]

The tone and wording the OP uses indicates he's trying to make him\herself feel better about not be able to afford or get the new model. I went from the 2012 to the 2013 and went from 3.5 hours to 8+ ... I'd say that's pretty remarkable.... but if I were trying to convince myself otherwise, I'd likely post on her bashing that it's 8.5 instead of 9 hours too, haha

An important point: A MacBook advertised as "12 hours battery" will last twice as long one one charge as one advertised as "6 hours battery", no matter what you do. If you have an old MacBook, you know the new MBA will last a lot longer.

 

[Mrbobb]

The tone and wording the OP uses indicates he's trying to make him\herself feel better about not be able to afford or get the new model. I went from the 2012 to the 2013 and went from 3.5 hours to 8+ ... I'd say that's pretty remarkable.... but if I were trying to convince myself otherwise, I'd likely post on her bashing that it's 8.5 instead of 9 hours too, haha

I go with that Dr. Phil.

Otherwise we maybe looking at a 13 years old who bases his/her purchase decision on hear-say.