Does anyone have a Laptop Headaches?

[yodaxl7]

I have gone through 4 to 5 laptops!! Lol!! They all have been pc. My major complaints on all of them were battery life. I hate the idea of having to plug them in everywhere I go. Plus, I had to re-install windows a few times on each onoe of them.

When I heard the iPad has a 10 hour battery life, it made me excited! I have checked the apple.com site and noticed some of the mbp has at least 7 hours of battery life. Guess, battery and chips gotten better on energy consumption. I cannot afford to get a new laptop, but the current is fine (except for battery life).

I am planning on getting the iPad. I will use my pc for basically just for updating my iphone and Ipad. I don't think I will need a laptop, but may get mbp in a few years. For now, iPad will keep me busy. I don't do heavy computing. I like to play games, browse net, maybe read a book, listen music and watch movies. I will use app for this and that. I may use the iwork.

 

[WytRaven]

When I heard the iPad has a 10 hour battery life, it made me excited! I have checked the apple.com site and noticed some of the mbp has at least 7 hours of battery life.

I in no way am intending on putting a dampener on your excitement but please be realistic about this.

If you read what Apple did to reach this magic number of 10 hours you will see that the test was basically 10 hours of constant web browsing. Now that said, it is probably a pretty fair test as web browsing is what Apple expects the iPad to be used for more than anything else.

I suppose all I'm saying is please don't by an iPad and then come back on these forums whining about how it only lasted 5 hours when you were playing FPS games constantly. Just because they say 10 hours, that does not mean you will get 10 hours, it will depend on your usage.

Regardless, I think you will be happy with the battery life anyway. By comparison my current tablet will last about 1.5 hours absolute max in power saving mode...hardly impressive.

 

[yodaxl7]

Five hours is great too! I thought Steve Job said that he watch movies for ten hours! I kinda figured FPS games would drain the battery faster than watching movies!

 

[zemzabob]

From the Apple web site

Up to 10 Hours
Battery Life
To maximize battery life, Apple engineers took the same lithium-polymer battery technology they developed for Mac notebook computers and applied it to the iPad. As a result, you can use iPad for up to 10 hours while surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching videos, or listening to music.2

 

[WytRaven]

Also from Apple's website, a bit more detail:

Testing conducted by Apple in January 2010 using preproduction iPad units and software. Testing consisted of full battery discharge while performing each of the following tasks: video playback, audio playback, and Internet browsing using Wi-Fi. Video content was a repeated 2-hour 23-minute movie purchased from the iTunes Store. Audio content was a playlist of 358 unique songs, consisting of a combination of songs imported from CDs using iTunes (128-Kbps AAC encoding) and songs purchased from the iTunes Store (256-Kbps AAC encoding). Internet over Wi-Fi tests were conducted using a closed network and dedicated web and mail servers, browsing snapshot versions of 20 popular web pages, and receiving mail once an hour. All settings were default except: Wi-Fi was associated with a network; the Wi-Fi feature Ask to Join Networks and Auto-Brightness were turned off. Battery life depends on device settings, usage, and many other factors. Battery tests are conducted using specific iPad units; actual results may vary.

I swear the first time I read this fine print it was just about web browsing...perhaps it's been updated recently

 

[bossxii]

Battery life claims are always over hyped. The "7 hour" MBP batteries are for sure based on wifi/internet/email and I think even at 50% screen brightness was lucky to pull 5.5 hours out of it. This is nothing to complain about based on batteries in the past few hears lucky to pull 2 or 2.5 hours. If in fact the iPad pull 10 hours of video I'll be shocked. That would mean the wifi/internet/email usage would probably nearly double that to 20 hours give or take. If in fact Apple could get eve 12 or 15 hours out surfing and doing email on Wifi i think we would have seen a larger number posted at the Keynote. 10 hours of video would be incredible, but I'm not holding my breath on that claim.

 

[vini-vidi-vici]

Also, keep in mind that's 10 hours till it's totally dead. Most people will shut down when they're at like 15-20% or so. Anyway, I'm fine with all that... just how it is. Bottom line is that I expect the battery life on the iPad to be "pretty good".

 

[bobob]

I have gone through 4 to 5 laptops!! ...I cannot afford to get a new laptop, but the current is fine (except for battery life).

If battery life is your primary concern and cost is an issue, perhaps you would be better off just buying a second battery for your existing laptop.