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20060302 Thursday March 02, 2006

MacBook Pro Battery Life I leave my MacBook Pro at the office these days, and keep it plugged in most of the time. However, some folks have asked about battery life, so I figured I'd test it out today. I unplugged it when I got in and waited for it to sleep. 2 hours and 23 minutes. This is on par with my old PowerBook, but it's quite different from what MacRumors says (3hr 17min). I have a keyboard, mouse and 20" cinema display hooked up to it, but the display has its own power, so I doubt that effects the results. Posted in Mac OS X at Mar 02 2006, 01:36:55 PM MST 11 Comments

Comments:

The company I was recently hired to work for is providing me a MacBook and that battery life is kind of a bummer compared to the approximate 5 hours I currently get with my iBook. You could hardly watch a movie on a plane ride with the life span on the MacBook.

Posted by PJ Hyett on March 02, 2006 at 02:03 PM MST #

Driving a lot more pixels will take up more power.

Posted by Tony on March 02, 2006 at 02:31 PM MST #

I get 3:15 to 3:45 when I'm running my MBP on battery, but I don't typically have the keyboard and monitor connected while I'm operating off AC power. I'll have to run a test with it hooked up to the 24" Dell and see what I get. Are you using the "Better Battery Life" profile when disconnected?

Posted by Mark Imbriaco on March 02, 2006 at 03:17 PM MST #

I get less than an hour out of my 3 year old Toshiba (2 when it was brand new). So anything more than that will be a bonus! (I'm easily pleased) (And interestingly the comment authentication failed first time around : 93 + 8 = 101 where I'm from...)

Posted by Ben W on March 02, 2006 at 05:44 PM MST #

PJ - you cannot go wrong getting a MacBook Pro. It's like having a G5 in a laptop.

Posted by Matt Raible on March 02, 2006 at 09:35 PM MST #

I think I'll wait for the MacBook coming April 1st. :)

Posted by James on March 02, 2006 at 09:47 PM MST #

Well, my cheapo-Gericom Intel 1,8GHz 1GB RAM 15,4" Widescreen will do it for like two and a half hours. Screams like hell when it's trying to cool down the CPU, but other than that, pretty decent!

Posted by Torsten on March 03, 2006 at 03:52 PM MST #

OK, another question: Can you use two batteries (at the same time) with a MacBook Pro?

Posted by Lars Fischer on March 03, 2006 at 04:05 PM MST #

I gotta say that I think it's what you expect from a product. I have found my New Macbook to be pretty battery efficent- ok comparing it to those levano books that are doing 5+ hours a battery sure it looks disappointing, but I mean look at the screen its beautiful. Peformance wise I totally agree with Matt, it's like having a G5 in a laptop, I got a Dual 1.8 G5 Powermac, and I just got a new 1.83 Macbook- and I gotta say in most every day use the Macbook eats it for breakfast. Tasks like handbrake are a dead heat with the Macbook slightly edging out the Powermac on frame rate, I think you have to hope that with constant updates, and a good 3rd party market we should hopefully start to see a 3rd party battery maybe boosting that battery life to 4-5 hours, just need to keep fingers and toes crossed. personally, on average getting 3hrs - 3hrs15 per battery charge, though Ive noticed that this only came about after a few full charge/discharge cycles- maybe something to do with the new battery technology. Anyone else in the UK bought MacBook? I seemed to recieve mine before most others .. and loving it

Posted by David Sheddan on March 16, 2006 at 04:55 PM MST #

I'm getting between 3 - 4 hours on my MBP 2.0. When working on battery, I switch off the network and turn down my screen's brightness. That seems to make quite a difference. The battery life is not as good as my old Dell, but otoh, this little guy is much faster and in general so much nicer to work with. I'm very happy with this machine.

Posted by Eelco Hillenius on May 02, 2006 at 03:06 AM MDT #

The folks at www.batterygeek.net have several brand new portable power solutions for all the new MacBook 13? and MacBook Pro laptops. In order for thier laptop battery solution to work however you must request from them the custom MacBook connector cable and tip at the time of your order. Some of the compatible BatteryGeek external laptop batteries can power the new MacBooks up to 6+ hours per charge.

Posted by Antonio on September 24, 2006 at 03:12 PM MDT #

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Matt Raible is a Web Architect who enjoys developing applications with open source technologies. Contact me for rates.
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