uMBP battery life not up to par

[Cosmotose]

I've had my MBP for only about two weeks now, and I'm only getting about 4 hours out of the battery for minimal computing and no bluetooth or ridiculous screen brightness.

I've already gone through 13 battery lifecycles, says coconutbattery. Also,

Maximum battery charge: 6392 mAh
Current battery capacity: 6392 mAh
Original battery capacity: 6500 mAh

Does this sound like a defective battery? According to Apple, I should be getting almost double the time out of my battery! What gives? Anyone else have this problem?

 

[oregon2]

Nah, that doesn't sound defective. Sound like you are just using your Mac for more than just word processing.

BTW, what are your energy saver settings? Are you running on the 9600m GT?

 

[Cosmotose]

I have it set for better battery life vs better graphics, and yeah, ive got the 9600m. I guess "up to 7 hours" is worded for their benefit....

 

[RetepNamenots]

I have it set for better battery life vs better graphics, and yeah, ive got the 9600m. I guess "up to 7 hours" is worded for their benefit....

What MBP is it?

My 17" battery has a capacity of 12329 mAh, according to coconut battery, which is double yours... I get about 7-8 hours without WiFi, around 5 with WiFi.

I don't understand why my capacity is double yours?

 

[Cosmotose]

What MBP is it?

My 17" battery has a capacity of 12329 mAh, according to coconut battery, which is double yours... I get about 7-8 hours without WiFi, around 5 with WiFi.

I don't understand why my capacity is double yours?

Mine's 15" 2.8 gHz... I don't know what all those figures in coconutbattery mean anyways...

 

[miles01110]

Are you actually only getting 4 hours (as in, you've timed it) or are you just going off of the timer in the menu bar? The timer is inaccurate almost to the point of being useless. That capacity looks pretty normal to me.

 

[jlpoore89]

February 2009 15" MBP

You all should feel very fortunate. I have a uMBP from February with the following battery specs:

Original- 4600 mAh
Maximum- 4500 mAh
Current- 4376 mAh
Cycles- 39

The Rev. B MacBook Air has a bigger battery by almost 1000 mAh!! This is the one thing that truly disappoints me with the original uMBP (pre-June 2009/built-in battery) If I run the screen brightness at about 1/4 and turn bluetooth off and lightly surf MacRumors I can get 3 hrs if I am lucky but most normal/average internet usage gives me about 1.5 hrs of battery life. BTW this is on the 9400m. Personally I think this is ridiculous for something that Apple claims has 5 hrs of wireless productivity because I'm not even close to that.

 

[Cosmotose]

Are you actually only getting 4 hours (as in, you've timed it) or are you just going off of the timer in the menu bar? The timer is inaccurate almost to the point of being useless. That capacity looks pretty normal to me.

No, like if I unplug it at noon, it'll be dead by 4 o'clock. I mean, its not bad, and its certainly better than my old laptop with a batterly life of zero, but I guess I was led to believe that it would be much more.

The iBooks released in 1997 (you know, the suitcases?) had a battery life of 6 hours! We haven't advanced much in that department.

 

[NT1440]

Are you actually only getting 4 hours (as in, you've timed it) or are you just going off of the timer in the menu bar? The timer is inaccurate almost to the point of being useless. That capacity looks pretty normal to me.

The timer is the best battery timer ive seen, because it calculates on realtime useage reflected upon what you are doing at the time. I love it!

I get usually around 5 and half hours out of my 13" MBP. thats with keyboard on about a quarter, and screen either at halfway or one click under that. Keep in mind that the ambient sensor really has an impact on battery life because in a darker room everything dims and you get more life, a brighter room and the screen brightens (the main battery killer) while the relatively low power consuming keyboard turns of.

 

[miles01110]

No, like if I unplug it at noon, it'll be dead by 4 o'clock. I mean, its not bad, and its certainly better than my old laptop with a batterly life of zero, but I guess I was led to believe that it would be much more.

Hm. That's a little weird. I routinely get 7+ hours on mine with wifi on and brightness at 1/2. Take a look at activity monitor to see if something is hogging CPU.

The iBooks released in 1997 (you know, the suitcases?) had a battery life of 6 hours! We haven't advanced much in that department.

Err... battery life has remained constant, but performance has increased by an order of magnitude. You must be hard to please...

The timer is the best battery timer ive seen, because it calculates on realtime useage reflected upon what you are doing at the time. I love it!

Some people like it. I find it kind of annoying to see that I have 7 hours remaining one minute and then the next minute I only have 1 left if I'm running a script.