Mac super battery? Question from windows guy.

Hey, I heard today from the teacher that mac can run like 7 hours on the battery? Really?
Is it because of the OS or an extra-special battery?

 

it's how the OS is written, and the ACPI works

 

While OSX does have better power management compared to XP and maybe even Vista, non of the new mac notebooks can reach 7 hours of actual battery life. Maybe if the macbook (pro) was left on idle it could reach 7 hours, but once you start moving that cursor and surfing the net, that number will drop.

 

I miss my old 12" ibook from 2004 when I would get 5.5-6 hours out of it. That thing was a CHAMPION.

The new Macbook pro 17"ers have the new battery in it that is claiming something like 7 hours on light useage or something of the sort.

 

I don't think it will make 7 hours but it could be very close. Here is a review by anandtech about Mac battery usage.

 

I think they placed the battery cells in rectangular prisms [as opposed to cylinders]. That is supposed to give it more room for a larger capacity. Didn't they also move the insides around for a even greater storage area?

 

My Macbook (late 2008 model) was netting around 5-6 hours battery life. Bear in mind that the batteries Apple uses aren't you standard 4/6/8 cell. I think they use an 8 cell, which helps to boost battery life.

PC laptops are equally as good, as long as you pay the right price. Lenovo's are know for superior battery life. The T400, for example, gets around 8-12 hours battery life on a 6 cell (from what I've heard).

 

7 hours pff you can leave it on unpluged for 7 hours with brightness on minimum doing nothing, but with any normal usage a normal person would have less battery life than 7 hours

 

Your teacher may have been refering to the new 17" mbp which with its special battery is listed at 7-8h battery life.
Although real world test have not quite shown this.
a

 

I dunno... my 15" unibody claims "up to 5 hours" and I have gotten close to 6 before, and i was actually using it.... was kinda dark and i had the screen brightness pretty low... but wireless was on and i was typing stuff and checking a few things online... but most of the time was just typing Office stuff... I really don't doubt that the new 17" can get 8 hours with light use.

 

They don't lie about the hours, they can get them, just depends on how you are using them. If you have your screen on full and your keyboard of full your not going to get the time it says.

 

It's what Apple claims. Some fanboys will inexplicably big it up but in comparative use Apple fares slightly worse than premium Windows machines in terms of claimed vs actual.

Some examples: Generally speaking with display at the lowest level, wireless on and actually using 'wireless productivity' I get 3.75 hours max out of the 'up to 5-hour wireless productivity' claimed Airs, and 3.5 hours or less out of the similarly 5 hour claimed 2.4 Macbooks. Similar results with Macbook Pros of different genertions - so that's about a 1.4 ratio in terms of claimed vs actual, and that's with extreme power saving settings kicked in. Anyone who tells you more than 5 hours is most likely to be a fanboy.

With the new MBP17 - which I haven't received yet - that formula means you can expect a 5.75 hour battery life with the IGP with power ekeing, less with the GPU. The problem is that of course a number of full HD class notebooks with replaceable batteries can go for about 4 hours in the same power saving modes - and what's more, you can replace the battery to extend runtime, and no need to wait for the laptop to charge to get going again either (This has been one of the most frustrating experiences with the Air).

On the Sony TT as a comparison, I get ~4 hours in exactly the same usage pattern as the Air with the onboard 3G going full-time, and 6 hours with wireless in the aforementioned power saving modes. Sony claim 4.5 to 7.5 hours - so that's a 1.25 ratio. And I find this discrepancy ratio fairly typical among Dell and Sony's wares - and since I tend to use all my portable machines in the same class pretty similarly, I've developed a good sample set.

Power management is slightly less developed on OS X than Vista as well, especially in terms of how you can choose to put the system into standby. Not having a choice between hibernate and sleep can put you at a disadvantage in certain situations - especially if the base runtime is as relatively pathetic as the Air and Macbook are.

 

Really?

I heard vista sucked at battery life.

 

My MacBook has a record 7:30

I had it on super low brightness, made sure the fans didnt go over 2000rpm, just watching 3 movies in a row, HULU BABY!!!

But usually I get 4-5 hours on 75% brightness, wifi and 3-4 apps running at once... thats amazing!



By the way one more thing, do you guys ever notice that if you dont use the Dashboard after you started up your mac its inactive, but once you open it itll always be on, like you cant shut it off in the activity monitor, so it eats away bandwith ram and cpu power (I have approx. 25-30 widgets )

 

Vista sucks at battery life compared to OSX. Didn't anyone read the article I linked to earlier.

 

FAIL. The Macbook Pro 17" boasts 8 hour battery life, and that's been confirmed through use too.

My Macbook Pro 15" gets 5 hours pretty easily too

 

Vista battery life is epic fail.

 

Any way, other laptops beside apple susk at battery life. 4 hours for us would be considered too good to be true. I get 3,5 on my 15" MSI with 9 cell battery.

Thanks for the comments.

 

I agree with Captain Fail
Its proven, and my MacBook gets more than what its rated...

People are just too ignorant to turn off Bluetooth, wifi, turn down screen brightness, turn off apps they dont need, etc...

I let my friend use my MacBook on standard settings and he managed 3-4 hours.
when I used it I kept checking stuff every 15 minutes to see what on and off and I got 5-6 hours.

 

Show me a review that managed 8 hours of battery life.

From the Macworld Review. The only place I have found that actually tested the battery life doing nothing but surfing the web and typing in Word.

Guy a couple of posts up managed only 7.5 with super low brightness and watching videos online.

 

See comment for Beatsiz

If you compare a budget POS with anything more expensive. True. Compare like for like, no.

I could say the same for Vista, XP, etc.

My runtime comparisons are in real life, doing much the same things.

 

Thanks for quoting me before by the way about my post

 

I quoted my response to your post later on in my post. Sorry for that potential misunderstanding.

"True, you have to compare a 13.3" with the same cells etc... to get comparison... same proc... etc..."

Exactly. Allow a little leeway on the side due to the variety of options available for Windows and you can get superior numbers / options almost every time if you even compare something cheaper. The reason why Apple gets it's specs quoted so often is primarily down to the very limited options available. Apple makes it much easier for people who don't want to expend the effort to make an informed choice (and this includes many people who write about tech) to choose. And even more bizarrely, there are a particularly rabid breed of fanboys among Apple owners who try their level best to give every attribute of their machine super-laptop abilities regardless of reality.

Here's a simple example: Even two years ago, the impulse-buy 12" Samsung Q35 with the GMA950 was getting an hour longer runtime than the then-current GMA950'd Changecolourandcrackbook under similar conditions. And it weighed almost a pound less as well.

 

why is this thread still open? IMO,op got the answer to his question-

 

I still wish that it is not a built in battery.

 

^any specific reason for that?

 

Just because he wants it to...

Cant accept changes in society, in materialistic things and mentally...


Im sure someone will come up with a mod for it...



And HONESTLY, I cant find anybody hauling a 17" MBP with additional batteries...
99% of the time its used in an office or stationary place...


Apple is smart, they follow the main trends, they dont conform to specific groups of people like gamers etc... just the general industry
And once they dont like the general way of things they change it (iPhone, iPod, MacBook Air etc...)
They cant specialize in everything, going with 90%+ users dont own a second battery makes perfect sense for 17" MBP with intergrated battery, why? Because only 10% will cry about it

I never said I like EVERYTHING about apple, but have some common sense and different viewpoints

 

I am sorry m8,but I will! we should respect each other-every one of us is free to express his opinion,but in intelligent way w/o offending anyone

 

people never get tired of comparing who has the biggest... battery

 

They set the trends for their target market as I said. The truth is that the vast majority of consumer Windows users would also be perfectly OK with a Mac - because they do so little.

The irony is that most pros will need a removable battery. And pros will pick the 17-inch as it's the only machine in the current range with a matte option.

And the further irony is that if you want to extend your runtime with an overpriced third-party external battery (because not only do you need to factor in the price for a battery, you'll need to gut a new Apple PSU to get at the Magsafe) - which there will be soon for the 17-inch, count on it - you'll need to start by discharging that, not the internal cell - which means dragging about a pound extra, negating the advantages of a supposedly 'pro', light-for-the-size machine.

Yes - I'm sure the majority of graphic designers who do nothing much who buys a 17-inch as a DTR/DO (desktop replacement/desktop ornament) will rarely feel the need to scratch that runtime. In my case though, I can see it causing problems. However I don't buy used, I need new machines and I guess I'll have to deal with the compromises that Apple increasingly throws towards actual 'Pro' users, not the likes of Paris Hilton.

 

can you please mention some?

pros?can you please explain what do you mean by "pros"?professional photo/video editors?

and for alternatives,there are HP Elitebook 8730w,Dell Precision 6400 and Lenovo w700.

 

But as I said, how many actual "PRO" users carry additional batteries with their current MB/MBP? 5% or something like that?
Im sure apple can set their rules with internal batteries if only 5% will complain...

There you go

 

LOL, how about pro...gamers...
BTW, My SR MBP can get over 5h easily. I wish i had a penryn MBP

 

As I said, target market. You're right - with the majority of owners being preening designers, media types and people who would barely have a clue how to swap out a battery - you can probably tell I hang out in Apple Stores (not out of choice) often - 'pro' users in the more varied Windows sense are likely much fewer and farther inbetween.

And yes, I have a significant number of spare batteries for the pre-UB 15 and 17-inch Crapbooks that I still have.

 

Welcome to the 5% or less of the users who own a spare battery


I will get a spare battery for my macbook, but I will most likely get an external battery pack, which will be around the same price but last so much longer.
I will be doing timelapse photography with my G9 and offloading ever couple hours or so (16GB SDHC WOOH!)
And the external battery pack can charge pretty much anything, so im set

My MacBook will never need more power than it already has unless I go to Africa again or any extreme long trip or other reason

 

Most field Photographers I know bring an extra battery and an external battery pack for their Macbook Pros.

 

Well - we'll see.

To the OP: My UB 17" Crapbooks have shipped recently after a CTO delay. I'll have some non-fanboy (5 genuine working hours from a SR MBP? Give me a break ) runtimes within a week or two.

 

you use that "crapbook" too much-why don't you sell it if you don't like it?

 

Good question. The answer is 'OS X application lock-in'.

 

Such as... ?

 

its acutally 8 but I think it will only last that way if its on the dimmest mode with everything turned off like bluetooth wifi etc. also not running too many apps

 

sorry,but have you read the posts above?

 

me? no yy

 

Because your MacBook is way out of the league

We already went over battery life and everything and mentioned everything you said

 

Well, don't know how you could manage a 7 hour lifespan on my blackbook, which is half year old :X On lowest usage I manage to push to about 4h , which is not a miracle, had Dell Inspiron 1520 with Vista it used to last for about 3h

 

I don't know about the notebooks you whimpersnapers today have but back in the good old days, I can slide in an extra battery in my G3 Powerbook's modular bay and have 10 hours of real battery life.

Man, I miss my Pismo.

 

oh ok.. I really didnt feel like reading it all. Laziness