New Macbook pro 17" battery life?

I just bought the new macbook pro 17", unibody, and I've found that the battery life for it seems to be about 5 hours as opposed to the 8 hour battery life they were stating. Was this supposed to be 8 hours of steady computing? I have the 7200 rpm harddrive upgrade in it, but I would imagine that wouldn't take up too much more battery life. I also switched to the lesser graphics card for more battery life and still found that it doesn't come anywhere near 8 hours. Could this be a faulty battery, or was the 8 hour battery life just an overestimated "guess" of some sorts? Was i supposed to do some crazy battery drain thing before I turned on the computer like the old computer batteries? Has anyone else experienced a shorter battery life? Or an actual 8 hour span? Also, if your battery lasts that long, what is it that you are doing with it (just internet browsing, word processing, Final Cut)? Thanks guys,

I just bought the new macbook pro 17", unibody, and I've found that the battery life for it seems to be about 5 hours as opposed to the 8 hour battery life they were stating. Was this supposed to be 8 hours of steady computing? I have the 7200 rpm harddrive upgrade in it, but I would imagine that wouldn't take up too much more battery life. I also switched to the lesser graphics card for more battery life and still found that it doesn't come anywhere near 8 hours. Could this be a faulty battery, or was the 8 hour battery life just an overestimated "guess" of some sorts? Was i supposed to do some crazy battery drain thing before I turned on the computer like the old computer batteries? Has anyone else experienced a shorter battery life? Or an actual 8 hour span? Also, if your battery lasts that long, what is it that you are doing with it (just internet browsing, word processing, Final Cut)? Thanks guys,

**** Please, no Cross Posting the same message in multiple threads. ****

Read this very carefully and see how Anand of Anandtech got 8 hours. You can't run things wide open and expect 8 hours.

AnandTech: Apple's 2009 MacBook Pro: Battery Life to Die For

Yea, I've just never seen it go above 7 hours on the little time thing when you click on the battery. Even after I did all the "power save" options and was only using internet. I'm not sure why it is, but I'd imagine it should be up to 8 hours.

The power measure "estimate" can be inaccurate and can change drastically depending on what you're doing. I've seen it go all over the place. The link dtravis7 also linked to will show that despite the fact that you may rarely get 8 hours, you will always generally get much more time than other models.

The fine print comes in handy here: "Battery life depends on configuration and use. See Apple - Batteries for more information. 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%." That's where 8 hours comes from.

Right. I don't know, I have everything the same, battery optimization setting up, screen at half brightness, and I'm just looking on the internet. The battery still won't last longer than 2:30. Could this be something faulty?

onefastack said:

Right. I don't know, I have everything the same, battery optimization setting up, screen at half brightness, and I'm just looking on the internet. The battery still won't last longer than 2:30. Could this be something faulty?

Click to expand...

2 months later we get an answer!;D

- Nick