Battery Life Lie for new MacbookPro

[kcwell]

Received the new 17" Macbook Pro last monday and after 3 days using the laptop, I am certain that Apple got this one wrong. The longest I have gotten on a full charge of continuous use is about 3 hours. Yes that's right, THREE HOURS on a laptop with an internal battery!!

I love my Apple products(2 pro's, 2 iphones, 3 ipods) but this is nuts. I can't believe they touted this technology as the 'next' thing.

More importantly, what am I going to do with this thing. My old 17" Macbook Pro got over 2.5 hours with a good battery and I had 2 spares for it. Am I really stuck with a 4 day old laptop that I wish I hadn't purchased.

signed,

buyer's remorse with Apple??!!

 

[True Bassist]

Erm...faulty product? Different settings to the ones that Apple got 8 hours with?
What software are you running and what are you doing with your MBP?

I suggest you take a look at the battery status under System Profiler>Power. I don't think Apple have got this one wrong - they are a huge company and would not get away with lying about an 8 hour battery that only runs 3 hours.

I think you need to check stuff out before you start a thread accusing Apple of lying - it's a bit silly.

 

[scathe]

keep in mind that it's 8 hours of casual using, some word processing, web browsing ... nothing that stretches the processor or most importantly the hard drive, spinning up that drive for the whole time will drain your battery very quickly

 

[wytwolf]

Well remember apple states UP TO 8 hours of wireless productivity. Also, "The wireless productivity test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing various websites and editing text in a word processing document with display brightness set to 50%."

 

[LindsayM]

Must say I was tempted by the 17" on battery life alone. If this is true I am glad I opted for the 15", I see when I first bought it I could see 5 hours on the meter, now its a max 4:20 and I have only had it for 1 month. Must say all my windows machine batteries were reasonably poor and I budgeted to replace my battery every year or so.

 

[kcwell]

Erm...faulty product? Different settings to the ones that Apple got 8 hours with?
What software are you running and what are you doing with your MBP?

I suggest you take a look at the battery status under System Profiler>Power. I don't think Apple have got this one wrong - they are a huge company and would not get away with lying about an 8 hour battery that only runs 3 hours.

I think you need to check stuff out before you start a thread accusing Apple of lying - it's a bit silly.

I wouldn't speak about something I haven't 'checked out'. Its a bit short-sided of you to suggest I don't know my own computer.

1) I am using all of the battery saving options
2) I am only using Safari/Firefox and Mail. Period.

oh and BTW, you should check your facts. I much as I love Apple, I do recall Apple promising 'push' technology for the Iphone through MobileMe. They recanted, apologized and gave us all 3 extra months of service for their blunder. Or maybe you forgot about that one.

 

[True Bassist]

I apologise about not getting my facts completely straight with the MobileMe incident - I have no experience in that side of Apple's business plan. All I know is that for Apple to state an 8 hour battery length which is actually 3 would be impossible to sell as there would be complaints flying in left, right and center. It's also illegal.
2 of my friends at Uni have the new 17" and they regularly get around 7 hours with iTunes, Firefox, Word, Photoshop and a few other things running so it's possible that your machine is part of a faulty batch?
Obviously it's still in warranty so I suggest you get it back to an Apple Store as like you said, 3 hours from an 8 hour battery is absurd.

Oh and by the way, it's a bit short-sided of you to suggest that Apple are "lying" about the battery life. Of course they're going to advertise the best possible battery life they can get away with, or maybe you forgot about that?

 

[kcwell]

I guess Engadget is wrong ,too,for accusing Apple of the same

MacBook Pro 17-inch unibody review

 

[agurlnamedgoo]

Have you brought the computer to the store?

 

[kcwell]

nope....talked directly with with apple support's toll free support since I didn't buy this Pro at the store, it was ordered

they gave me instructions on calibrating the battery....unfortunately that suggestion didn't help either....

still love my Pro but I essentially have a laptop with marginally better battery performance that takes 2X as long to charge!

 

[jram]

If you only got 3 hr. I would take it back. I've only had my 17in. for a few days, using better battery life in energy saver I got over 7 hours without trying, you don't need to use the higher performance setting unless your playing a demanding game. Though all I was doing was surfing.
The best thing about this machine is it runs so quiet and stays cool.

 

[jram]

At 11 am , I unplugged my adapter, as of 4:12 I have 2:05 left. You might have a bad battery, could happen.

 

[jram]

Laptop battery optimization and maintenance - MacFixIt

 

[Santino]

I guess Engadget is wrong ,too,for accusing Apple of the same

MacBook Pro 17-inch unibody review

Have you even read the review?

So, we're dealing almost four hours discrepancy with what Apple claims -- but what does that mean? According to the company, they tested a 2.66GHz model with the screen at half brightness while browsing the web over WiFi and editing a text document to achieve that eight hour number. We put the system to a more average and complete test, and frankly, we're impressed with the results. The new battery bests the typical lifespan of a MacBook Pro removable by almost double.

 

[True Bassist]

Have you even read the review?

Thank you! Was just about to say the same thing =]

 

[agurlnamedgoo]

nope....talked directly with with apple support's toll free support since I didn't buy this Pro at the store, it was ordered

they gave me instructions on calibrating the battery....unfortunately that suggestion didn't help either....

still love my Pro but I essentially have a laptop with marginally better battery performance that takes 2X as long to charge!

you know you can go to the store with the problem even if you didn't buy the computer from the store?