macbook battery isnt lasting the 7 hours?

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tomisbetterthanu

83 posts

Master Geek

#39105 9-Aug-2009 06:13

I bought a macbook pro 15" which is meant to have 7 hour battery life. But my laptop is full charge now and it says i only have 5 and a half hours left? I am using the better battery life option and the backlight is on about 50%

z2k

320 posts

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#244362 9-Aug-2009 09:05

tomisbetterthanu: I bought a macbook pro 15" which is meant to have 7 hour battery life. But my laptop is full charge now and it says i only have 5 and a half hours left? I am using the better battery life option and the backlight is on about 50%

Most new devices need a few charge cycles before they reach maximum capacity..

Also, manufacturers like to exaggerate battery life.. Its probably 7 hours in test conditions

corksta

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#244378 9-Aug-2009 10:31

No with the batteries in the Macbooks the claims are just about spot on. All the reviews I have read say the 7 hours is achievable, with some reviews getting even more depending on usage.

tomisbetterthanu

83 posts

Master Geek

#244398 9-Aug-2009 11:51

yes 7 hours is meant to be achievable... The battery still lasts long enough though, about 4 and a half hours yesterday. I only got it yesterday, so ill see if it gets better after the first few charges

danthi

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#245737 12-Aug-2009 18:24

7 hours is achievable at low brightness....Your screen brightness takes maximum battery

gehenna

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#245753 12-Aug-2009 18:46

Depends on a few things - do you have WiFi on? Bluetooth on? keyboard backlight on?

All those things will seriously reduce the estimated battery life from the full 7 hours to around about 5 hours.

Try turning absolutely everything off and turn your brightness down to about 40% then you'll be seeing the type of battery life that Apple have claimed and it'll be the type of usage that they claim is required to achieve it too.

sbiddle

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Biddle Corp

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#245762 12-Aug-2009 19:00

Laptop manufacturers spin every lie in the book when it comes to battery life.

Reality is you will never get anything near where what they claim unless you turn everything off!

porche20002

72 posts

Master Geek

#245768 12-Aug-2009 19:18

In one of te reviews by walt mossberg he got to 7 hours and about 5 with intense usage

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tomisbetterthanu

83 posts

Master Geek

#245802 12-Aug-2009 20:39

So I've had my laptop for about 5 days now, I haven't really been using it with the better battery life selected as I've been playing crysis while running windows. But a few days ago I got about 4 and a half hours with backlight about 70% and full keyboard brightness and wifi on, Bluetooth off

heavenlywild

5060 posts

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#245809 12-Aug-2009 20:59

What did you do on your Macbook to get the 4.5 hours? Surfing the web, watching movies or gaming?

It all depends on what you actually do on it.

gehenna

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#245852 12-Aug-2009 22:14

I get about 5 hours of solid usage with most things running like WiFi, full brightness (for around 75% of the time then i lower it), lots of applications and movies/music running. I get up to 7 hours if i limit what I do

toast

6 posts

Wannabe Geek

#245858 12-Aug-2009 22:40

Are you running Windows? battery life on macs is much better under OSX
I have the old aluminium macbook and get 3 hours in XP vs 5 hours in OSX

See here for some numbers:
http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3582

tomisbetterthanu

83 posts

Master Geek

#245862 12-Aug-2009 22:49

I only run windows to play games. For everything else it's OS X for me :) I was using the Internet ad watched life of Brian which is oN my hard drive