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jasonwinn · Oct 21, 2003, 08:22 PM

Just curious.
I get 2.3 hours, and its brand new. How come they advertise 4.5 hours for the 15 inch powerbook when I dont even get close?

javabeans · Oct 21, 2003, 08:43 PM

Originally posted by jasonwinn:
Just curious.
I get 2.3 hours, and its brand new. How come they advertise 4.5 hours for the 15 inch powerbook when I dont even get close?

I get about the same for my 17" PB with highest brightness & Highest Performance (under Energy Saver). It also depends on your usage patterns. If you're doing lots of DVD/CD burning I'm sure you'll get even less...

You can try adjusting the above settings and you might be able to squeeze some more mileage...

PowerTower Fan · Oct 21, 2003, 08:48 PM

Originally posted by jasonwinn:
Just curious.
I get 2.3 hours, and its brand new. How come they advertise 4.5 hours for the 15 inch powerbook when I dont even get close?

For the rated battery life they'll spin down the processor, keep the brightness at a minimum, turn off airport, etc. Panther has made the greatest difference in longer battery life with my TiBook 550. With typing notes, web browsing, and email I'll get around 4 to 4:30 of battery life. This is a huge gain I got over Jaguar.

javabeans · Oct 21, 2003, 08:53 PM

Originally posted by PowerTower Fan:
For the rated battery life they'll spin down the processor, keep the brightness at a minimum, turn off airport, etc. Panther has made the greatest difference in longer battery life with my TiBook 550. With typing notes, web browsing, and email I'll get around 4 to 4:30 of battery life. This is a huge gain I got over Jaguar.

Wow...that's awesome...I wonder if Panther does similar thing for my PB 17'

deathandtaxes · Oct 21, 2003, 09:59 PM

The biggest battery boost I got was buying the new 65 watt-hr battery from Newertech for my Ti550. Went from an average of 2.5 hr to a solid 4 hr. Now I wish they would make this battery for the AlBooks.

deathandtaxes · Oct 21, 2003, 10:01 PM

You might want to look at this thread.

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=183254

nagromme · Oct 21, 2003, 10:12 PM

The REAL "how come" is... "everybody does it." Just like CRT's advertise false sizes in inches. A company that exaggerated less would just look bad in comparison to other brands. A shame, really. Someone should come up with a stricter battery standard and a nufty acronym to go with it

Something that defines some things like CPU on minimum power, screen half way, 10% HD use, 10% optical use... etc. A reasonable high-end for battery life, instead of an unreachable extreme. Maybe two standards, one emphasizing performance, to give a range. Such a standard would never fairly compare all the variables, but it would be better than we have now.

I envision something like: "Battery life 2 to 4 hours UBES." (Uniform Battery Evaluation Standard?) That would replace, say... "Battery life up to 6 hours"

nobitacu · Oct 22, 2003, 01:41 AM

I only get around 2:30 on mine, sometimes 3 hours.

Ming

neutrino23 · Oct 22, 2003, 02:07 AM

I calibrated my battery when I first got the 15" Al PB. Now with a full charge it predicts about 3.5 hours. I haven't done a definitive test. Sometimes I compare the time remaining to the clock and find it rather accurate. Much better than on previous powerbooks.

Rain · Oct 22, 2003, 04:47 AM

My 12" gets about 2:30 with airport on, brightness at one bar, and running netscape and words.

When I get the chance I'm gonna try turning off AE and only run words to see how much more time I can get.

Link · Oct 22, 2003, 05:08 AM

So with that asked, how long will a powerbook last playing, say wolfenstein, full screen resolution, high brightness, medium sound (maybe headphones), backlit keyboard, and airport on (as main comm)???

If it's less then 2 hours (and that seems to be the truth now), I don't have a need for one

Btw: I'masking for 15"/17" albooks

threestain · Oct 22, 2003, 06:44 AM

I get 4 hours on mine, on average, with things set to energy saver and downloading stuff.

About 3 hours on auto. Screen brightness about 8. But I'm probably wrong by the looks of things, and I haven't run xcharge for a while. Will do though and let you guys know

janmc · Oct 22, 2003, 07:32 AM

I get about 2 hours, 10 mins on auto surfing and listening to iTunes.

I think I got a bad 'un. At least there are no white spots... yet!

forgot to mention it's a 15" 1.25

MaW · Oct 22, 2003, 07:57 AM

2-3 hours surfing the web via Airport, 3-4 hours with Airport switched off, surfing via ethernet.

Roughly. That's for a 12" 1GHz powerbook.

Link · Oct 22, 2003, 08:30 AM

k checking with a friend of mine, as described above, I'd get about an hour and a half to an hour and 45 mins on a powerbook...

Hrmmm

GeneShifter · Oct 22, 2003, 09:33 AM

Originally posted by MaW:
2-3 hours surfing the web via Airport, 3-4 hours with Airport switched off, surfing via ethernet.

Roughly. That's for a 12" 1GHz powerbook.

That's what I get on my Rev A 12"PB.

sguys · Oct 22, 2003, 11:13 AM

i got my PB 15" last week and i can only get 1hr 45 mins out of it (or so the time estimate tells me). im often on the internet and listening to music on it though. ive calibrated the battery twice and its still not improved. can i get a new battery if i complain to apple?

Podolsky · Oct 22, 2003, 11:34 AM

I am conditioning my new 17 battery by fully charging overnight and fully discharging each morning. I will do that 4 or 5 times and than I will just use it as I need to but only keep in plugged in if that option is available. I have a second battery that I will condition when I am done with this one. I am using XBattery utility to monitor this conditioning and I have already noted that the battery is improving with each conditioning. I am now getting just under 3 hours from a charge. I keep the screen pretty bright and I keep the processor at maximum. I bought the extra battery just so that I could run a maximum all the time. I do let the screen dim quickly when I am in battery mode.

I am already pleased with the battery life of this computer.

waxcrash · Oct 22, 2003, 12:18 PM

On my TiBook 800 MHz, I get the following:

Original 15 month old battery:
45 minutes - I've charged this battery so many times. When it was new I'd get around 2 hours.

3 month old 61 watt battery purchased from Apple Store:
3 hours easy.

The 5 hours that Apple advertises is a joke.

naknek · Oct 22, 2003, 12:42 PM

On my new PB12 running 10.2.8, I get about 3 hours on auto setting, max brightness, just surfing on Airport. If I crank the brightness down to level 3, I get a hair over 4 hours.

machem · Oct 22, 2003, 01:25 PM

Jeez, why aren't people saying which machine they have? That's somewhat useful information, yes?

1.25 GHz 15" Al SD 'book:

Battery 1 4.2 A hr capacity: 3:30 on automatic processor, one tick on the screen, BT off, APE on. "Light" work --- Excel, Mozilla, iTunes on.

down to

2:15 with processor on "maximum" (or whatever it is called), running simulations, graphics-intensive visualizations, load >= 1.2 constantly

Battery 2 3.5 A hr capacity: 3:00 to 1:55, same range of work.

My time went up about 25% (to these levels) after updating to 10.2.8 --- remember if you just got your 'book this week to update, or wait for Panther on Friday. I'm looking forward to seeing what I get with 10.3, as I've been keeping pretty careful data on battery life.