13inch MBP Battery life

Is the battery life of the MBP 13inch as advertised (~10 hours?)
or is there some variability?

It would be helpful to know, as it would make my decison on what to buy easier.

 

I see quite a few people here writing of pretty amazing battery life on the MBP 13, close to 7 hours and even more.

I am amazed, because I have never had more than 4 hours out of a charge cycle, and I have around 60 or so by now. My battery health is 99%. Granted, I don't throttle down any of the power saving methods to try and get more. I do demand that I alsways get 100% capability. If I wanted less, i.e. a dark screen, slow drive response, or a throttled down processor I would have simply bought a MB instead of the MBP.

I suppose if I encounter a situation where my battery life is critical, I will put into miser mode. But really, I don't think a laptop ought to be rated by conditions which are far inferior to the hardware being purchased. Battery life specs should be specified as when used with the extent of capability of the device (max bright, HDD on, with the active radio connections).

I'm not saying I am normal, just nearer one end of the spectrum. If you ask me, the MBP 13 has a 3.5 hour battery.

 

my macbook is one of the first unibody macbooks ever released. even before they started calling them pro and upgraded the batterys. my battery easily gets 4-5 hours and there have been at least 3 battery upgrades since mine.

 

I think if you dim the screen to the lowest and turn off bluetooth, etc, you should get close to the 7 hour mark. Maybe 6 hours.

 

I had my MBP on for ~4 hours or so today and it had 47% left, I was just websurfing, using powerpoint/word, and listening to music on itunes.

I doubt you could get 11 hours unless you turn everything off and have very little actual usage on the machine.

 

backlight off, brightness to 30-50%, and youre only using light web browsing (no youtube, flash, etc) it will last you around 7 hours +

 

I get about 5-6 hours when just surfing the web or light use with brightness 50% and keyboard backlight off on mine.

My battery seems to be wearing pretty fast, it has had 57 charge cycles and ive got 5% wear already.

 

It depends what apps your running.. and what you have installed running int he background. A lot of people lose power to needless things because they simply do not know how to check it all out and run it well.

Depending what I'm doing I've gotten anywhere from 2 hours, up to slightly over 9 hours. yes over 9.. that wasn't just sitting there in a test, it was actually using it... now all I was doing was working on a document... a buncha ebooks and research... nothing hard on the machine to draw extra power.

also a tip.. if you want battery life good and your multitasking a lot, actually Hide your other apps your not using at the moment... saves cycles and battery life.

 

Thanks for the responses all.
I'm trying to decide between this and lenovo x201.
The MBP has a nicer screen but the x201 seems to win out with battery life.
Each has their pluses and minuses.
It's a tough decision.
If anyone here has any insight, that'd be great too

 

if GPU performance matters at all to you.. the graphics in the MBP are like 10X better. The touchpad is also awesome... unless you really like those trackpoint things on the Lenovo.

 

Most of the stuff I want to do with it is Academic -- notes, PDF, powerpoint, word..
and watching Video for movies. I don't think i'm going to game on the thing. I really wish onenote was available -- don't think it is worth running vmware for it.

I've been impressed with the touchpad. Though I can't directly compare how much more i'd like it. Someone showed me bettertouchtool and thatlooked amazing. Though...The keyboard on the lenovo is nice.

 

For my uses, I never get that 10 hours claimed by Apple.

Most of the time, I get 4 to 6 hours.

Wi-Fi on
Bluetooth off
Keyboard Backlight off
Screen Brightness 75%

I don't know how anyone can use their screen on minimum brightness, that ish is so uncomfortable.

 

you need to shut down all the ports and brightness at lowest to get 10hrs.... False advertisement is common in today world.

 

How is saying you can get up to 10 hours of battery life false advertising?

If you dim the screen, turn of the keyboard, turn off bluetooth, wireless off, etc, you do get 10 hours.

 

Apple's 10 hours battery tests are done with Screen at 50%, and WIFI on... at the same settings I have been able to pull a bit over 9. If I did slightly less I could have hit 10 I'm sure.

after everyone does all their customizations and install all their extra apps that leave processes running all the time using the CPU... well battery life goes down. Apple tests a completely stock machine.

 

I have both and batter life is pretty close. The X201s may have a little better battery life. Both are good but very different. Screen resolution on X201s is better though screen quality for viewing is better on the MBP due too colors being more vibrant during the day but at night or in the dark the screen on the X201s is better.

 

So in your opinion, which is the better buy?
Also, I'd have to go with an x201 (or the x200 that's 600 bucks on Buy.com), since the x201s is hard to come by.

I'm using it for academic purposes; typing over PDF files to take notes (via onenote). So I need it to last throughout a day of use -6 hours is enough..but the more the better.

Occasionally, I'll watch video on it with one other person. I think i would miss my x60 tablet's IPS screen.

Apple tempts me with the whole good looks of the machine. But I'm trying to be practical...I think the biggest disruption in my workflow would be the loss of onenote.

 

I leave my MBP at my shop these days and use my X201s at home and on the road. If you have an Iphone 4 or any other Iphone I would get the MBP. I have both of these laptops with SSD's installed in both of them. I guess it all depends on what you are using the laptop for. Surfing the net is much better on the MBP along with switching between screens or applications on the MBP. X201s is nice and light. The MBP is heavy and not so portable and the screen resolution for viewing is ok but not all that great. If you have extra cash buy the X201s and the 15" MBP with the high screen resolution

 

Any idea how much worse battery life is running windows full time?

 

on the mbp 13" roughly a 30-40% hit, depending on usage

 

What's your Rationale for getting a MPB because of an iphone?

So you're x201s is the primary machine?? What are you using it for?

 

I have Etrade and Socttrade's Elite platform and with the better screen resolution it is better to use on the road which is why I picked the X201s. The X201s with a good SSD in it is very light and quick. I installed an Intel 160 GB G2 SSD in my X201s and it flies with 8 GB of RAM.

The MBP is more of an internet surfing device at work where I can check emails work with photos and music. I also use it work and update my website for my shop. It's is nice to have both and be able to use both. I may sell my 13" MBP and buy another 15" one with the higher screen resolution.

 

Are there any real truth or study cases that show the Apple's MB/MBP have better battery life (not talking about capacity) compared to other laptop batteries such as Lenovo, Dell, Sony's?

When I see Apple's advertisement, 1000 charge cycles, it seems too good to be true. My thinkpad x61t had about 300 cycles during the 3.5 years usage, and it only holds 60% of original capacity. This gives me about 3 hours normal use (wifi on, taking notes in tablet mode).

I'm planning to get a new laptop with Sandy bridge this summer. Currently waiting for vaio SA, vaio Z, or MBP13 to be released.

Reading the users comments about the current MBP13 battery life (x hours) made me disappointed at MBP13. I was seriously considering to buy MBP13 last year, and the advertised realistic 10 hour battery life was what I was impressed with. I'm glad I didn't pull the trigger. If it is only usable around 5 hours, there's no difference with other Windows based laptops.

 

i've hit eight hours in os x with minimal productivity.

screen at lowest setting, wifi on, bluetooth and keyboard off. firefox was running 1-3 tabs and textedit was open.

of course, bootcamp is only like 65% of that.

asus "endurance-specialist" laptops will win in battery life.

 

All laptop manufacturers record their battery life according to a simple and unrealistic test: the laptop just sits there for the duration of the test, idling. Almost everything is turned off in the meantime.

Apple's 10-hour claim is therefore true, but unrealistic. For my own use, I get about 8 hours out of my MBP with the screen at about 25% brightness, wireless on, and using browser/office software.

To say that the MBP's battery life is disappointing is like saying that the Motorola RAZR isn't thin enough. It doesn't make any sense.

 

I understand that manufacturers use super unrealistic claims of battery run time. Somehow, their ad made me believe it does last close to the claimed hours. In most cases with normal use (at least 50% screen brightness, active internet surfing) of Dell/Sony/Lenovo laptops, I get about 70% of what they claim. So if I can get 8 hours of normal use on MBP13, I would be satisfied. But several users mentioned 5 hours or even less in their normal use. Normal use is very subjective, but if it only last 5 hours, there is no merit on the battery run time. Sony Z12 can last 5 hours in low power state.

Don't get me wrong, I love the hardware build quality of the MBP13. OSX is pretty I want to try it, and I like using terminal in Linux. That's one of the reason why I'm considering a jump from Windows to OSX. But not so fast, because I also read MBP13 2010 version have problems with SATA2 connections (for SSD), and too old CPU architecture.


Back to my original question, does the MBP battery really last 1000 charges? (While others only last 300 like in their ad?)

 

batterybar reports that i have 7% wear on my laptop, i've used it since august 2010....looks pretty good to me. I haven't noticed any reduction in battery life either.

EVERYONE will have different definitions of 'normal.' you just need to pay attention to how people describe their use-cases.

take it this way....i'm taking a full-time programming program. i've seen pretty much every model of laptop(unfortunately, no vaio Zs) on campus and the ONLY people who don't have to plug in their laptops are the dudes with unibody macbook pros and the guys with ASUS laptops. Although, i do have to plug in my lappy when i'm running compilers(i prefer my screen at max brightness and i ramp my CPU speed appropriately)


ps, i don't get it...why would the ad NOT support their own claims?

 

Asus make good notebooks. Their power enhancements to squeeze more battry life is something I wish more vendors would do.

My beef with them is that they do not offer more models with good LCD panels. Way too many 1366*768 140:1 contrast glossy panels in their $800-1200 range IMO.

Even the sad MacBook has very good screen.

I guess you get what you pay for.