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When are the 8+ hour batteries coming for the MacBook?

E

eidrunner247

macrumors 6502
Original poster
I am just curious, when are we going to see longer battery lives for laptop computers - especially the Macbook (or even the Macbook pro)? I mean, a laptop loses much of its practicality when it has to be charged every two hours. Sure it's convenient, but if your laptop only gets a few hours under optimal conditions, a desktop PC doesn't sound that bad.

Now, the 12" Panasonic X5 (or even the Panasonic Y5 - 14") gets well over 8 hours on standard use and only weigh a few pounds. Of course, they aren't as powerful as the Macbooks, but they do sport a 100gb hard drive.

Will the Macbooks ever be able to attain this type of battery life? What about the low voltage processors? Any thoughts?

www.dynamism.com
 
I for one would love a 12 hour battery...eh!!! Maybe naquadah battery, after all, it's what they're using with AE expedition. 😀
 
I used to have a Fujitsu P2000, and if you removed the DVD drive and added the extra battery, you got over 12 hours. It was awesome. I loved that machine, but the Crusoe CPU was painfully slow.

I'm hoping Apple releases a MacBook based on the ULV Core Duo. .75watts instead of 2. The screen is still probably the biggest draw tho.
 
gammamonk said:
I used to have a Fujitsu P2000, and if you removed the DVD drive and added the extra battery, you got over 12 hours. It was awesome. I loved that machine, but the Crusoe CPU was painfully slow.

I'm hoping Apple releases a MacBook based on the ULV Core Duo. .75watts instead of 2. The screen is still probably the biggest draw tho.
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Ahhh... the glorius Transmeta chips. They had so much potential 🙁
Still do... just have to wait to see what the future brings.
 
Im pretty sure that IF I could invent a new technology to provide power to electronics that could replace batteries due to extreme superiority and efficency I could either

A) Rule the World
B) Make the World a happier place, (Then rule the world)
C)Sell the patent to energizer for all their worth and still personally reap the benefits(While being filthy, filthy rich)😀 😀
 
imacintel said:
When hell freezes over.🙂
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What are you talking about? As soon as MacBooks get Merom, they will consume much less power, and Apple wil be able to produce better batteries. I believe if not next revision MacBooks, then the Santa Rosa revision for sure.🙄
 
Josias said:
What are you talking about? As soon as MacBooks get Merom, they will consume much less power, and Apple wil be able to produce better batteries. I believe if not next revision MacBooks, then the Santa Rosa revision for sure.🙄
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No. Penryn is the chip that will consume less power or they could use a LV or ULV processor.

http://guides.macrumors.com/Penryn
 
When Apple starts selling 5kg battery packs.

Not gonna happen guys, even if they cut the power consumption of CPUs down to 0Ws it is not like your battery life will last that long, the main battery killer is your LCD display and its lovely backlight.
 
The LCD screen and harddrives are still the biggest reasons why we're not getting 8 hours from notebook computers.

Any computer that's getting 8+ hours now is either using a bigger battery, or 2 batteries. After all, nobody is creating magical harddrives, cpus, disk drives, and LCDs that use less power than others. Dell, HP, Gateway, Acer, Panasonic, BenQ, Apple, etc, are all using similar parts, just the quality and power usage of these parts may vary slightly.

A more efficient processor won't get you the sort of battery life you guys are dreaming of. Better technology will, however. Sure, you can squeeze another 20 or so minutes from a more power efficient cpu, but we might gain more than 60-90 minutes by switching to OLED. We'd likely gain 60+ minutes if we used flash-based harddrives in 2-3 years.

So "ha ha" regarding the cpu power usage. 😛 Honestly. Intel and AMDs marketing sure worked on you guys.
 
Not likely to happen. You get a lot of bang for your buck with Apple's notebooks. I'm sure they could strip it down and put in a lower res. display to get around 6 hrs. I think it would be a step back. I say just buy a second battery and keep it with you.
 
Mmmm, I think it's becoming a pipe dream sadly... similarly to cell phones. Like my cell phone now, I have to charge basically just as often as my second cell phone six years ago. It does so much more. And it's smaller. But ... little improvement in battery life in terms of total charge time.

I think computers are the same... the latest generation of Apple notebooks went from being ahead-of-the-pack in battery life to being so-so. And I would be surprised if they even get back to their ahead-of-the-pack status. 🙁 They've crammed so many amazing features in them, but they've gained weight and lost battery power.

I would be surprised if we actually see a net improvement even when the lower voltage Intel chips do come out.

I'm not really bitter about this. I think the MB and MBP are amazing. But I think that right now the ship has sailed and the market just doesn't push hard enough for better battery life as a priority. 🙁
 
mkrishnan said:
Mmmm, I think it's becoming a pipe dream sadly... similarly to cell phones. Like my cell phone now, I have to charge basically just as often as my second cell phone six years ago. It does so much more. And it's smaller. But ... little improvement in battery life in terms of total charge time.

I'm not really bitter about this. I think the MB and MBP are amazing. But I think that right now the ship has sailed and the market just doesn't push hard enough for better battery life as a priority. 🙁
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Not sure. I am still hopeful, just because Apple's competitors DO make smaller, lighter notebooks with better batteries (some of which are heavier, like the 8-cell batteries that come with the Lenovo Thinkpads).

There is definitely a market out there for ultra-portables, and I think Apple will try to get some more share of that market. Their prioritiies so far have been consumer and graphic design / visual markets. But the main business sector is huge and it might allow Apple's market share to expand significantly.

Personally, I still think that a docking station would be the way to go, where you could have your optical drive and your connectivity, while keeping the actual notebook slim and light and in a low-battery-consumption mood. 🙂
 
dialectician said:
Not sure. I am still hopeful, just because Apple's competitors DO make smaller, lighter notebooks with better batteries (some of which are heavier, like the 8-cell batteries that come with the Lenovo Thinkpads).

There is definitely a market out there for ultra-portables, and I think Apple will try to get some more share of that market. Their prioritiies so far have been consumer and graphic design / visual markets. But the main business sector is huge and it might allow Apple's market share to expand significantly.

Personally, I still think that a docking station would be the way to go, where you could have your optical drive and your connectivity, while keeping the actual notebook slim and light and in a low-battery-consumption mood. 🙂
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Not the market share defense again... Apple is interested in Profits. Dell has a great market share, but isn't making anything close to the way Apple is doing it. Apple ins not GM where they try to push out as many cars as they can to break even. They are a luxury computer. "if we bring this product will it bring us millions of dollars or only thousands. Thousands you say? Well never mind."

Ultra Portable, like the tablet, is a niche group. Until every Joe and Jane are getting hot and heavy for ultra portable there won't be one. Its a little more likely since flash drives are becoming bigger and more effective, but still not likely in near future. I'd say 2 years and you will have one.
 
eidrunner247 said:
I am just curious, when are we going to see longer battery lives for laptop computers - especially the Macbook (or even the Macbook pro)? I mean, a laptop loses much of its practicality when it has to be charged every two hours. Sure it's convenient, but if your laptop only gets a few hours under optimal conditions, a desktop PC doesn't sound that bad.

Now, the 12" Panasonic X5 (or even the Panasonic Y5 - 14") gets well over 8 hours on standard use and only weigh a few pounds. Of course, they aren't as powerful as the Macbooks, but they do sport a 100gb hard drive.

Will the Macbooks ever be able to attain this type of battery life? What about the low voltage processors? Any thoughts?

www.dynamism.com
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I read on magazine, mac laptos will be coming out with 20 ours battery life.😱 sorry it didn' say went.
 
I wish I will have one. but it's not neccessary. I want battery to go up to real 6 hours with using internet, multiful applications, normal brightness. it will be enough to satisfy everybody.🙂
 
archurban said:
I wish I will have one. but it's not neccessary. I want battery to go up to real 6 hours with using internet, multiful applications, normal brightness. it will be enough to satisfy everybody.🙂
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so will 64k of ram 🙄

but seriously a 8 hour battery life on apple laptops will happen by the end of this decades due to the strides intel is making to reach the 45 and eventually 32 nm processes.

until then, your only choices are fujitsu lifebooks, panasonic toughbooks, ibm thinkpads, hp's buisness line ... am i missing someone in that crowd?
 
An 8 hour battery would be amazing. I would be willing to sacrifice speed for power. Unfortunately, it's brightness, not speed anymore...

This would be a nice dream though: A docking station with a fast CPU in it, that you can use when the laptop is docked. Otherwise it uses a ULV Core Solo CPU underclocked. Small 13" screen (without the border like the MB has) and a flash based HDD.
 
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