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thayalan6868 · Apr 24, 2006, 08:19 AM

I'd like to get an idea as to what times people are able to get out of their batteries. Yesterday, I took my MBP to the library w/out a power cord to gauge the life of the battery. When I left my house, I was not under full charge. I had about another 15 minutes before the battery was fully charged. Using Word, Safari, and MacAIM, my battery lasted about less than 3 hours.

Stradlater · Apr 24, 2006, 09:40 AM

MacAIM? That hasn't been updated in ages and, if I remember correctly, is fraught with memory leaks and other symptoms of poor coding. Use iChat or Adium and you might get slightly better battery life.

3 hours is about what people have been reporting, though, which is unfortunately less than we're used to with the PBs of yesteryear.

MaxPower2k3 · Apr 24, 2006, 10:18 AM

just for reference, the apple site now does list battery life for both new MacBook Pros. The 15" is supposed to get 4.5 hours and the 17" is supposed to get 5.5 hours.

Timetheus · 03:52 PM

I use mine to take notes just about everyday, I start with an 8:30 class and end (after my third class) about 11:30. At that point I have anywhere from 50%-25% percent battery life (It sometimes sleeps through a whole class if were having discussion, test, etc, so it's not always constant use).

I charge over lunch (for an hour or so) and then take notes through 2 more classes, and I never go below 20%.

So I'd say 3 - 3.5 hours is about right under "normal' use.

btw, during that period my screen brightness is usually at two or three "clicks" (about 1/3 brightness), airport is on about half the time (mostly to get through "less-interesting" lectures - like right now, for instance), bluetooth is off, and I use Pages, Safari/Firefox, mail, and several widgets. It even showed off two keynote presentations today and I still have 41% left with 20 minutes of class to go (though it slept through half of my last class).

I have the 1.83, 1 GB RAM, 100GB 7200RPM HD.

thayalan6868 · Apr 24, 2006, 12:44 PM

Originally Posted by Timetheus

I use mine to take notes just about everyday, I start with an 8:30 class and end (after my thrid class) about 11:30. At that point I have anywhere from 50%-25% percent battery life (It sometimes sleeps through a whole class if were having discussion, test, etc, so it's not always constant use).

I charge over lunch (for an hour or so) and then take notes through 2 more classes, and I never go below 20%.

So I'd say 3 - 3.5 hours is about right under "normal' use.

btw, during that period my screen brightness usually at two or three "clicks" (about 1/3 brightness), airport is on about half the time (mostly to get through "less-interesting" lectures - like right now, for instance), bluetooth is off, and I use Pages, Safari/Firefox, mail, and several widgets. It even showed off two keynote presentations today and I still have 41% left with 20 minutes of class to go (though it slept through half of my last class).

I have the 1.83, 1 GB RAM, 100GB 7200RPM HD.

That's pretty good battery life. Especially with all those applications running.

thayalan6868 · Apr 24, 2006, 12:45 PM

Originally Posted by Stradlater

MacAIM? That hasn't been updated in ages and, if I remember correctly, is fraught with memory leaks and other symptoms of poor coding. Use iChat or Adium and you might get slightly better battery life.

3 hours is about what people have been reporting, though, which is unfortunately less than we're used to with the PBs of yesteryear.

MacAIM seemed a bit dated, but I'm used to the AIM interface. Is Adium that much better than AIM? iChat was a bit clunky for me. I'm not sure I can get used to using iChat.

Stradlater · Apr 24, 2006, 12:48 PM

Originally Posted by VanillaEps

MacAIM seemed a bit dated, but I'm used to the AIM interface. Is Adium that much better than AIM? iChat was a bit clunky for me. I'm not sure I can get used to using iChat.

Both are better, in my opinion, though Adium currently has issues with file transfers and direct connect. Both of those issues should be resolved with the forthcoming 1.0 release, though.

Timetheus · Apr 24, 2006, 03:55 PM

Originally Posted by VanillaEps

That's pretty good battery life. Especially with all those applications running.

Yeah, but I don't keep them all open at once (except pages, it's pretty much always there). There are usually a few 5-10 minutes periods were the screen is off (when professors go off on tangents or we're discussing something).

thayalan6868 · Apr 24, 2006, 04:06 PM

Does the MBP go into sleep mode upon closing?

Velocity211 · Apr 24, 2006, 05:40 PM

Originally Posted by VanillaEps

Does the MBP go into sleep mode upon closing?

Yes, like all other apple laptops.

Does the macbook pro get better battery life than the latest revision of the Powerbook? My Powerbook lasts about four hours with just internet surfing.

Timetheus · Apr 24, 2006, 06:03 PM

Originally Posted by Velocity211

Yes, like all other apple laptops.

Does the macbook pro get better battery life than the latest revision of the Powerbook? My Powerbook lasts about four hours with just internet surfing.

Probably a little less. Over a wire, I'd probably get near that 4 hours, over Airport it's more like 3.