The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    How good is the battery life in real world for Macbook Pro, also viewing angles on LCD?

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by Risco, Dec 19, 2010.

  1. Risco

    Risco Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    118
    Messages:
    1,097
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    To give an idea of what I do, I surf the net, burn the odd dvd and watch lots of Youtube videos as well as movies either via an optical drive or from the HDD. I see them posting 8-9hrs life, but this I would guess would be on minimal power savings. I would mainly use OSX, but would also dual boot to windows for certain things.

    So realistically what can I expect? Also how good are the viewing angles of Macbooks? It is the one thing I have found with all windows laptops; the lcd's are junk.
     
    Risco, Dec 19, 2010
    #1
  2. Nick

    Nick Professor Carnista

    Reputations:
    3,870
    Messages:
    4,089
    Likes Received:
    649
    Trophy Points:
    181
    Battery Life. Writing in a word document and surfing the web a little:

    Windows 7 Pro X64: 4-5 hours.

    OS X 10.6: 6-7 Hours.

    This is with the screen and keyboard dimmed and in Windows, bluetooth is on.

    Viewing angles: I can sit all the way to one side of my Macbook and see the screen almost perfectly.
     
    Nick, Dec 19, 2010
    #2
  3. Risco

    Risco Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    118
    Messages:
    1,097
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Thanks very much, what about the vertical viewing angles? I am never looking directly at my laptop and find if it is not dead centre it distorts but is fine from the side.
     
    Risco, Dec 19, 2010
    #3
  4. Nick

    Nick Professor Carnista

    Reputations:
    3,870
    Messages:
    4,089
    Likes Received:
    649
    Trophy Points:
    181
    Vertical viewing angles are great too. My Macbook is on my desktop, and I just stood up and could still read the text on screen.
     
    Nick, Dec 19, 2010
    #4
  5. Bog

    Bog Losing it...

    Reputations:
    4,018
    Messages:
    6,046
    Likes Received:
    7
    Trophy Points:
    206
    With your usage, you can expect 2-3 hours. If you lower screen brightness the MBP should last 3 hours, but you're doing some very demanding things. YouTube requires high CPU usage while burning requires spinning up a motor; they're both high power consumers.
     
    Bog, Dec 20, 2010
    #5
  6. StealthReventon

    StealthReventon Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    4
    Messages:
    389
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    31
    How long do you think the latest MBP in OSX would last just watching a HD .mkv from the HDD? Or a flash video like on YT/HULU?
     
    StealthReventon, Dec 20, 2010
    #6
  7. crazycanuk

    crazycanuk Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    1,354
    Messages:
    2,705
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    56
    2h 18 mins at about 60% screen brightness. My wife was just watching Avatar in the van as a .mkv and got mad when it called to be plugged in

    needless to say another machine got pulled to finish the movie with the kids.

    please note that flash sucks power badly in OSX ... dunno why as its the ONLY os that gves me grief with it but we will let Adobe and Apple battle that one out.
     
    crazycanuk, Dec 20, 2010
    #7
  8. Crimsoned

    Crimsoned Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    268
    Messages:
    1,396
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    56
    Crimsoned, Dec 21, 2010
    #8
  9. cdcohen

    cdcohen Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    13
    Messages:
    126
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    What models are you interested in?

    My MBP13 got 8-9 hours of web and documents with screen at 60%
    My MBP15 i7 gets 4 hours of web and documents with screen at 60%

    Viewing angles with the Anti-glare is great, with the glossy they are terrible.
     
    cdcohen, Dec 22, 2010
    #9
  10. Deathwinger

    Deathwinger Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    385
    Messages:
    2,423
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    56
    I'd be interested in an i5 model of the Macbook Pro. Anyone have any battery life figures for that?
     
    Deathwinger, Dec 22, 2010
    #10
  11. L3vi

    L3vi Merry Christmas!

    Reputations:
    354
    Messages:
    1,680
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Battery life on the i5 is really good, about 7 hours with light web browsing and office tasks.
     
    L3vi, Dec 23, 2010
    #11
  12. crazycanuk

    crazycanuk Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    1,354
    Messages:
    2,705
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    56
    and around 2.5 hours watching DVD's or.Mkv video as the OP had posted
     
    crazycanuk, Dec 23, 2010
    #12