Hours of battery use versus RAM

purple said:

After I found that the 15 inch Mac Book Pro (Salesman said it was five pounds to lug around, 17 inch would be ten pounds.) The other downside to the 17 inch would - I guess - a larger screen reduces battery life further.

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Hey "purple"...I guess I must have missed this in your original posting..and wanted to comment.

I know that you're still deciding on what to buy.

As far as the 17" MacBook Pro...yes of course it's going to be larger & heavier..but then that's what you would expect in a 17" laptop...and if portability is important...then a 17" is probably not the best choice.

As far as weight & battery life of the 17" MacBook Pro.

Weight: The salesman you spoke with was being a bit unfair regarding the weight of the MacBook Pro. He/she said it weighed 10 pounds...Apple says that the newest MacBook Pro only weighs 6.6 pounds...that's just 1.1 pounds heavier than the 15" MacBook Pros 5.5 pound weight....rather than double the weight of the 15" as the salesperson stated.

As far as battery life of the 17". The battery life on a 17" is just as long as it is on the 13" & 15" laptops. in fact..with the current line of laptops Apple has...the 17" actually has a LONGER battery life than the 13" & 15" laptops!

Apple currently claims a 7 hour battery life for the 13" & 15" laptops...and 8 hours for the 17" MacBook Pro!

Hope this helps,

- Nick

And other types of available hardware. I a newcomer who is thinking of getting a Mac Book or Mac Book Pro and wonder about a few things.

Has anyone stats on number of hours of use for a 15 inch versus having 4 GB of RAM versus 8 GB of RAM?

While portability is important to me I am not thinking of taking the thing on a cross country hike. I feel I could better use a notebook with the matte screen which comes on the 15 inch and not the 13 inch.

I vacillate between thinking portability above all versus having the features which only start on a 15 inch. The low end is to buy a 10 inch Net Book which could have many hours of battery life without plugging in. I understand that would be 2.5 pounds (is that right?) unless I choose to drag around an external optical drive.

So I thought about a 13 inch Mac Book Pro. I seemed to think the battery would give me at least five hours, if I am not using the optical drive much or heavy intensity stuff. I do not plan to game or do movie editing. I have a fascination with trying to run a VM, which would work better with 8 GB. I also have this desire to have processor power as in CPU speed and GB's of RAM with a devoted video card. Having an optical drive would allow me to run a Live CD of Linux or BSD, a much more secure way to run a computer. As I see some folks mention that they have pushed their Mac Book Pro off the coffee table, and it is permanently damaged, then the reason to spent two hundred dollars more for the aluminum case is -- because it has more USB ports? Salesman said the battery in a Mac Book Pro was not replaceable. To which I said, you mean I can not replace it, but your techie guys could? Then I see a post on the forum of someone replacing their own battery, or hard drive. Does this mean one can open the case and not void the warranty?

After I found that the 15 inch Mac Book Pro (Salesman said it was five pounds to lug around, 17 inch would be ten pounds.) The other downside to the 17 inch would - I guess - a larger screen reduces battery life further.

I do not have solid numbers on the relative weight of these different machines. I do not have any weight on the white Mac Book. I also wonder how many hours of battery life one can expect versus the different types of hardware that I have the option to choose.

I am not sure I want to spend hours learning the Apple OS. Years ago I applied for a job with Apple. Not only did they not want me, they were rude about it as well.

Reading here about the problems does not fill me with desire to buy a Mac Book Pro. While problems is what a forum is about, I am having doubts about the Mac Book Pro. I agreed to look for a notebook for my sister who has insisted that she have a Dell (I have very strong negative feelings about Dell, but I have no valid experience to point to for that. I do think the higher end Dell Notebook is much different than the cheap Dells which one hears others complain about). What I am getting at is I do not have any confidence that if I spend over three grand for a Mac Book Pro that I will be any happier than if I spend six hundred on a Net Book? Or something in between.

Anyone have any solid numbers to convince me one way or the other?

purple said:

Has anyone stats on number of hours of use for a 15 inch versus having 4 GB of RAM versus 8 GB of RAM?

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I'm going to say that if you NEED 8 gig of ram...then you got to have 8 gig of ram...regardless of how it effects battery life.

If you only need 4 gig of ram, then just stay with 4 gig of ram.

I can't tell you the last time I bumped into someone who REALLY needed 8 gig of ram!!!

Don't waste your money & put 8 gig of ram into your laptop...just so you can brag that you got 8 GIG OF RAM! WHOA SUPERMAN!!!;D

But with that being said. I don't think that I have ever seen a benchmark test that was measuring battery life...and the amount of ram was a factor. So I'm going to say that putting 8 gig of ram into your laptop is going to HURT your wallet MUCH more than it's going to hurt your battery life.

2 cents,

- Nick

The Apple sales guy said that the Mac Book Pro would have the same battery life with either 4 GB or 8 GB. Yes, I was very clear that to me battery life was hours of use, not number of charges or the decline due to the age of battery. I forgot to mention. While I am not any kind of an expert on this, I feel the change from 4 to 8 GB of RAM should a couple of hundred instead of a grand. Overcharging by a company is a serious reason not to ever buy their products. Goes to the basic goals of the company is not to furnish a good product to customers and make a fair profit. Sounds more like the guys who sold Adjustable Rate Mortgages to ordinary working people while falsifying the buyers earnings. In thinking of buying any Apple I have had a suspension of belief in this. Please tell me which is true?

purple said:

The Apple sales guy said that the Mac Book Pro would have the same battery life with either 4 GB or 8 GB.

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Well...I would be the first person to say don't always believe everything a salesperson tells you...but I would be in agreement with what the sales guy said about about battery life in this case.

Regarding the ram (4 gig or 8 gig):

- search Mac-Forums...and you will find that almost everyone agrees that Apple charges way too much for ram upgrades.
- if you need to upgrade to 8 gig of ram, buy it & install it yourself.
- I seriously doubt you need 8 gig of ram...but if you really need it, get it.
- if you need to upgrade to 8 gig of ram...you would need two 4 gig ram modules/sticks. These are VERY VERY expensive currently...so although Apple's prices are expensive...they will be very expensive at other places as well (but probably still cheaper than Apple).

Hope this helps,

- Nick

Thank you for you reply.

If I installed the RAM myself, I would think that would invalidate any warranty on a new computer. Likewise the extended warranty I was thinking of buying as well. I do not feel I would want to blow up a warranty on a brand new Mac Book Pro. Once, I was willing to open up a desktop and work on it at seventy days of a limited ninety day warranty.

I would not want to say anything about my financial situation as it is really weird and the moderator would get all over me about it not being an Apple topic.

Anyone weighed the several comparable machines 13 and 15 inch Mac Book and Mac Book Pro, plus a separate weight to include all the stuff one would carry around in a bag with it. Charger at least. I could put some corresponding weights and carry that around for a few days.

I am concerned about battery life under real use. There a few public places to plug in and it is best if one does not need to at all. I have read about turning off the back light, reducing screen intensity and doing some things to extend battery life. However. In real use. Anyone have any numbers. I would guess everyone just knows whether they run down their batteries before they get back home and recharge as opposed to solid benchmarks.

Will Apple offer a Matte screen on a 13 inch in the near future? I already have one set of reflective glare from my bifocals. Another is a bit much.

From what I know, more Ram wouldn't use more battery if not in use. and for yourself to use up 8Gb ram would take loads of effort!

purple said:

If I installed the RAM myself, I would think that would invalidate any warranty on a new computer. Likewise the extended warranty I was thinking of buying as well.

I would not want to say anything about my financial situation as it is really weird and the moderator would get all over me about it not being an Apple topic.

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Regarding the ram. I mentioned previously that you probably DO NOT need 8 gig of ram...and even if you did...do you REALLY want to spend an extra $1000 for 8 gig of ram from Apple!!!

If you purchased the 13" MacBook Pro with 4 gig of ram...that would cost $1299...if you bought it with 8 gig of ram it would cost a whopping $2299...that would seem to be a financially foolish thing to do...especially if you don't need 8 gig of ram.

Regarding your financial situation. Nobody asked you about your financial situation...and nobody really cares...so why even mention it!!!

I think that you REALLY need to think hard about your computer purchase! With the questions & comments you have made in this thread...it really doesn't seem that you have thought things thru carefully!

- Nick

Anyone weighed the several comparable machines 13 and 15 inch Mac Book and Mac Book Pro, plus a separate weight to include all the stuff one would carry around in a bag with it. Charger at least. I could put some corresponding weights and carry that around for a few days.

I am concerned about battery life under real use. There a few public places to plug in and it is best if one does not need to at all. I have read about turning off the back light, reducing screen intensity and doing some things to extend battery life. However. In real use. Anyone have any numbers. I would guess everyone just knows whether they run down their batteries before they get back home and recharge as opposed to solid benchmarks.

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weights are available on the apple website (shop - product - compare [bottom half])
Battery life obviously changes with what you're doing. Reviews seem to say somewhere around 5 hours? but that's usually for "normal" use.

Thanks for the polite replies.

The fellow who said I seem to be thinking of pointing one computer towards several different uses is correct. Also correct that I floundering around because I have not yet learned Apple Speak, which makes my questions sound inaccurate and vague. However. While I have several radically different uses for this computer, I had hoped to find enough common areas that one computer could either handle all, or more clearly identify the minimum computer for the most minimum task. then find another computer to work on other uses.

I would feel pretty sure that to run a VM with OS X as a host and with a guest of Windows 7 that 4 GB of RAM would not run very well. On the flip side, it is probably not the best idea to run a VM with any notebook and unless the processor is so fast that one should not expect any kind of battery life. Plus, I have not researched whether the processor in any Mac Notebook has the neatzy keen features that allow a computer to run a VM really well. Certainly it is true that using a VM would really work best on a tower with a faster CPU and lots of RAM. However, my life is going to be more mobile and a tower does not appear to be an option.

Makes little diff to any one here. I did want to thank everyone for trying to be helpful. I am not close to deciding to what I will buy.

There are a lot of posts on this forum regarding VMs.

Many people here are running them with 2-4 GB or RAM.

I suggest you take a look at them, you can find them easily with the search button near the top of the page.

Also, if you want the 8 GB of RAM and you don't really care how much money it costs, go ahead and get it.

You might as well get a SSD, you will see a much greater improvement in performance compared to the 8 GB of RAM and it costs the same for a decent sized one.

The processors in the MBPs are the best you will find in netbooks of the same size. If you are really worried about the speed and performance, get the 17 inch with 3.06 GHz processor, 8 GB of RAM, and a SSD (Might really hurt your wallet, lol).

alexsd123 said:

Also, if you want the 8 GB of RAM and you don't really care how much money it costs, go ahead and get it.

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If you check out "purples" 2nd post in this thread..."purple" seems to indicate that the price for the upgrade from 4 to 8 gig of ram that Apple is charging is a unfair & expensive.

Most of us on this forum agree as well...that Apple over charges for ram upgrades.

Of course the two 4 gig sticks of ram needed to upgrade a MacBook or MBP to 8 gig are still very very expensive...and even at OWC...this would still cost around $650 bucks vs. the $1000 Apple is charging.

- Nick