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stylinexpat

macrumors 68020
Mar 6, 2009
2,108
4,549
What does yours say in System Profiler for maximum charge capacity? Mine say 6644 mAh.

Interesting.. I have a new MBP and I only see 5643 mAh on mine :eek:
 

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spinnerlys

Guest
Sep 7, 2008
14,328
7
forlod bygningen
Interesting.. I have a new MBP and I only see 5643 mAh on mine :eek:

Which MBP do you have? If it is the 13" or 15", that sounds about right, the 17" has around 12759mAh.

Addendum: The battery in the 13" and 15" MBP is not as big as the battery in the current 13" MBA, as far as I have gathered via tear downs.
 
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gmeltzer

macrumors newbie
Nov 1, 2010
4
0
Battery life

I get 5-6 hours. But the remaining life indicator jumps wildly. One minute it says 3:50; the next it might say 10:05, then a few minutes later it could be at 2:44. Kind of reminds me of those Microsoft things when you're installing a program and they pretend to show you time remaining. they can hang at "time remaining--1 second" for 30 minutes.

From my systm profiler:

Battery Information:

Model Information:
Serial Number: D860414030LDCQ8A0
Manufacturer: SMP
Device Name: bq20z451
Pack Lot Code: 0000
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 0301
Hardware Revision: 0002
Cell Revision: 0162
Charge Information:
Charge Remaining (mAh): 6538
Fully Charged: No
Charging: Yes
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 6647
Health Information:
Cycle Count: 2
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): 688
Voltage (mV): 8361




What does yours say in System Profiler for maximum charge capacity? Mine say 6644 mAh.
 

gwsat

macrumors 68000
Apr 12, 2008
1,920
0
Tulsa
They can hook up one of their diagnostic tools at the Genius Bar and isolate whether or not its a bad battery in like 30 seconds. I wouldn't waste a bunch of time trying to troubleshoot it yourself if you just bought it. Set up an appointment...you could walk out the door with a new one unless it was a CTO.

I played Left For Dead 2 on my 13" MBA yesterday for 3 hours on a full battery charge. My fans were whirring the whole time and even then, after that whole time, I still had over an hour left on the battery when I was done. With normal daily use, I'm averaging right around 7 hours.
That's good advice. I have exactly the same MBA as you do and my battery life seems fine, too. I haven't run it all the way down yet, simply because it is too easy to plug it into the AC adapter when I don't need it. Also, I try to remember to close the lid whenever I am not going to be using the computer for a few minutes.

I'm not going to have the battery life a lot of you do because I keep screen brightness at 90 percent and my VMware Fusion virtual machine is almost always running. It is a resource hog, which routinely commands 10 to 20 percent of my CPU, whereas no other app I have running uses more than 2 percent. Despite the strains I place on it, I estimate that my battery will give me at least 5 hours of life, which is just fine for my purposes.
 

stylinexpat

macrumors 68020
Mar 6, 2009
2,108
4,549
Which MBP do you have? If it is the 13" or 15", that sounds about right, the 17" has around 12759mAh.

Addendum: The batter in the 13" and 15" MBP is not as big as the battery in the current 13" MBA, as far as I have gathered via tear downs.

13"

I wonder how that is as according to Apple the battery in the MBP is bigger than the one in the new MBA according to their tech specs.
 

gnasher729

Suspended
Nov 25, 2005
17,980
5,566
I get 5-6 hours. But the remaining life indicator jumps wildly. One minute it says 3:50; the next it might say 10:05, then a few minutes later it could be at 2:44. Kind of reminds me of those Microsoft things when you're installing a program and they pretend to show you time remaining. they can hang at "time remaining--1 second" for 30 minutes.

For the battery, that is quite normal. Imagine your car had a display showing how many more hours you can drive. Drive through some town at 30 mph, then go on the motorway at 90 mph. The display would change dramatically.
 

slazareth

macrumors regular
Feb 5, 2006
124
1
I would recommend running coconut battery and seeing if it shows your battery at full capacity. But like others have said, it sounds like a defective battery.
 

gwsat

macrumors 68000
Apr 12, 2008
1,920
0
Tulsa
Addendum: The batter in the 13" and 15" MBP is not as big as the battery in the current 13" MBA, as far as I have gathered via tear downs.
The conventional wisdom seems to be that the 13 inch MBP's 10 hours of battery life, compared to the MBA's 7 hours, and the MBP's weight of 4.5 pounds, compared to the MBA's 2.9, is attributable to the 13 inch MBP's battery being larger and heavier. Is this not right?
 

stylinexpat

macrumors 68020
Mar 6, 2009
2,108
4,549
The conventional wisdom seems to be that the 13 inch MBP's 10 hours of battery life, compared to the MBA's 7 hours, and the MBP's weight of 4.5 pounds, compared to the MBA's 2.9, is attributable to the 13 inch MBP's battery being larger and heavier. Is this not right?

According to the specs on the Apple site the MBP has a bigger battery than the MBA one does (13" versions being talked about )
 

pfjellman

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 18, 2010
209
4
Oregon
Here are my battery specs -- just completed the battery calibration. Let's see if it performs better now.


Model Information:
Serial Number: D86041404X1DCQ8AT
Manufacturer: SMP
Device Name: bq20z451
Pack Lot Code: 0000
PCB Lot Code: 0000
Firmware Version: 0301
Hardware Revision: 0002
Cell Revision: 0162
Charge Information:
Charge Remaining (mAh): 6527
Fully Charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 6530
Health Information:
Cycle Count: 7
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -60
Voltage (mV): 8333
 

jw nyc

macrumors 6502a
Jan 31, 2008
854
0
I just received my MBA today and it seems I have a similar battery issue. I charged it up to 100% as soon as I got it but I'm currently at 48% (1:02 remaining it says) after about 2 hours. Now I AM using it fairly intensively to try and get everything on this machine (downloading a ton from drobox over wifi, installing all my programs, setting everything up etc) so it may just be because of that but I'll have to monitory it over the next few days. Let me know what you both find.
 

pfjellman

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 18, 2010
209
4
Oregon
After calibrating the battery I'm pleased to report that I'm getting 9-14 hours of battery life out of light-moderate use, and 6-7 hours with heavy use. I must say I'm pretty pleased by this little machine. Thanks for all the tips and help everyone.
 

jw nyc

macrumors 6502a
Jan 31, 2008
854
0
After calibrating the battery I'm pleased to report that I'm getting 9-14 hours of battery life out of light-moderate use, and 6-7 hours with heavy use. I must say I'm pretty pleased by this little machine. Thanks for all the tips and help everyone.

Yep the first day and a half my battery was pretty bad but now it's exceeding the 6-7 hours that it's supposed to be getting. Guess it just had to be calibrated!
 
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