05-19-2010, 08:07 AM

Hi

I got one of the new 2010 MacBook Pros a few weeks ago. And for the most part I've just been using it at my desk plugged in but yesterday I noticed that I have significantly less battery life then what I was promised.

I charged it all night in sleep mode with no programs running and when I woke up it was at 100% with only 3ish hours of battery life. Now its at 84% with 2 hours and 42 minutes remaining.

What happened to the 8ish hours of battery life?

Oh and its the lower end model of the macbook pro - 2.4ghz i5, 320gb HD, 4 gigs of ram, Nividia 330M.

05-19-2010, 08:41 AM

Originally Posted by Asiak

What happened to the 8ish hours of battery life?

Depends on use and things like screen brightness, speakers blasting, heavy HF and disc use, heavy ECU use processing video, heavy gaming hitting graphic card hard, etc.

05-19-2010, 08:53 AM

Originally Posted by Stanley

Depends on use and things like screen brightness, speakers blasting, heavy HF and disc use, heavy ECU use processing video, heavy gaming hitting graphic card hard, etc.

I've been doing nothing heavy, I've pretty much been surfing the internet light disc playing, and words processing.

And that still doesn't explain why I leave it charging all night in sleep mode with nothing running and wake up to find the battery says 100% charge 3ish hours remaining.

The advertised battery life was 8-9 hours, at 100% charge it should say 8-9 hours or even 7 hours remaining but it doesn't.

05-19-2010, 08:57 AM

Originally Posted by Asiak

I've been doing nothing heavy, I've pretty much been surfing the internet light disc playing, and words processing.

And that still doesn't explain why I leave it charging all night in sleep mode with nothing running and wake up to find the battery says 100% charge 3ish hours remaining.

The advertised battery life was 8-9 hours, at 100% charge it should say 8-9 hours or even 7 hours remaining but it doesn't.

Is the battery calibrated? Try running it until the laptop shuts off. Then let it sit with no charging for about 5 hours. Then recharge fully with no use ideally.

05-19-2010, 09:00 AM

Originally Posted by Stanley

Is the battery calibrated? Try running it until the laptop shuts off. Then let it sit with no charging for about 5 hours. Then recharge fully with no use ideally.

I do not know if the battery is calibrated.

Though I shall try that.

05-19-2010, 09:19 AM

No advertisement will give you the exact accurate batterylife estimates. Only live testing can do that.
Apple just states that at certain brightness lvls(probably minimal) and performing low power usage tasks(like text reading) with not much visual info being processed and displayed the battery can thoretically run up to 8 hours.
If any of these conditions are not met then it is going to be signifficantly lower. As for the displayed time, i guess it estimates the time left with the current power saving/brightness settings.

Follow Stanley's advise, any equipment with a rechargeable battery has to be callibrated first, that may very well be one of the reasons you are getting this.

05-19-2010, 09:50 AM

Originally Posted by Stanley

Is the battery calibrated? Try running it until the laptop shuts off. Then let it sit with no charging for about 5 hours. Then recharge fully with no use ideally.

Originally Posted by MacKeeper

No advertisement will give you the exact accurate batterylife estimates. Only live testing can do that.
Apple just states that at certain brightness lvls(probably minimal) and performing low power usage tasks(like text reading) with not much visual info being processed and displayed the battery can thoretically run up to 8 hours.
If any of these conditions are not met then it is going to be signifficantly lower. As for the displayed time, i guess it estimates the time left with the current power saving/brightness settings.

Follow Stanley's advise, any equipment with a rechargeable battery has to be callibrated first, that may very well be one of the reasons you are getting this.

Yes I understand that battery's are never as advertised but not so drastic as 8 hours and really being 3.

And yes I suspect its calibration too.

05-19-2010, 07:52 PM

I saw that one of those benchmarking companies got 8.3 hours i think it was watching movies from DVD. it was slightly higher then the previous generation. If i can find the link i'll link it up. But if your surfing the web with any type of FLASH on it your cpu is gonna jump up to 80% or so and reduce your battery life. FLASH and macos do not go well together. You could always get CLick 2 Flash it blocks flash unless you click on it to play it , saves CPU cycles and battery life for sure.

05-19-2010, 07:54 PM

+1 for Click2Flash for extended batt life while surfing !

05-19-2010, 08:03 PM

The 10 hours is not with brightness up full and and with flash videos playing on the web.

This will give you an idea under different test conditions.

Apple's 15-inch 2010 MacBook Pro: More Battery Life Tests, High Res Display Evaluated - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News