Any remedies? Methods? What do you use it for and how often do you charge it a day? Have you ever thought about switching to a MBP for the extra battery life?
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How do you feel towards the MBA's battery?
- Thread starter DannyNguyener
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More satisfied than I used to be ... I discovered two HP scan programs running the background which made the fans constantly at 6200. HPStartup, I think one was called.
I quit them via the Activity Monitor and suddenly, my battery life went from 2 hours to almost 3 hours, under the same conditions. The fans run at a more reasonable 2400 or so rpm. With this change, I'm satisfied.
That said, I usually have mine plugged in ...
[MBA, Rev C]
I quit them via the Activity Monitor and suddenly, my battery life went from 2 hours to almost 3 hours, under the same conditions. The fans run at a more reasonable 2400 or so rpm. With this change, I'm satisfied.
That said, I usually have mine plugged in ...
[MBA, Rev C]
I normally get 4+ hours per charge on my Rev C 2.13 GHz Air. I give it a full charge overnight and an hour here and there when I'm at an office during the day. I'd love a battery that gets a real-life 10 hours, so I'd not need to carry a charger to work.
I don't have the MacBook Air anymore, but when I did I was wholly unsatisfied with the battery life. I felt it was about two hours shorter than it should've been, even when using it with a SSD.
battery is the major issue that i would stay way from mba. i got between 3 hours on average with an ssd rev c version. i'm not a heavy user, but i do like have multiple apps open at the same time, eg: itunes, safari, mail, adium etc.
i've switched to the latest mbp, and i'm very satisfied with it. charging time is unbelievably short, (less than 1.5hr), it would last for 5+ hours even when i have itunes opened up and running flash video. just amazing.
i've switched to the latest mbp, and i'm very satisfied with it. charging time is unbelievably short, (less than 1.5hr), it would last for 5+ hours even when i have itunes opened up and running flash video. just amazing.
The biggest factor I see in the MBA battery is whether I am using WiFi or not. If I'm on an airplane and I've disabled WiFi, the MBA battery lasts me 5+ hours. If I'm at home with WiFi enabled, the batter life is about half of that! You should also disable bluetooth except when you're using it.
barely long enough
I use my mba (2 ears old, Rev A, 89% battery health, 307 cycles) for working while on trips, giving talks with Keynote, reading papers (PDFs), emailing, talking on Skype and browsing the internet. I get by on the battery life by plugging in when I can and I have an airline adapter that works on some airlines. I value the mba for its light weight and I do most of my more laborious computing with spreadsheets and photoshop on a newer desktop iMAC. I dim the brightness and shut off the airport when I know I'lll be away from a plug but it would be nice to have better battery life in the mba. I anticipate switching to a future generation ipad to replace the mba in large part because of the battery life issue. I'm hoping that that the next ipad offers a bit more memory, a front facing camera and a USB port. Maybe competition among the tablets will cause Apple to add these features.
I use my mba (2 ears old, Rev A, 89% battery health, 307 cycles) for working while on trips, giving talks with Keynote, reading papers (PDFs), emailing, talking on Skype and browsing the internet. I get by on the battery life by plugging in when I can and I have an airline adapter that works on some airlines. I value the mba for its light weight and I do most of my more laborious computing with spreadsheets and photoshop on a newer desktop iMAC. I dim the brightness and shut off the airport when I know I'lll be away from a plug but it would be nice to have better battery life in the mba. I anticipate switching to a future generation ipad to replace the mba in large part because of the battery life issue. I'm hoping that that the next ipad offers a bit more memory, a front facing camera and a USB port. Maybe competition among the tablets will cause Apple to add these features.
3.5 hours of moderate use, and i need about 5.5, but the form factor will keep it in my hands until it rots. I have runcore SSD and my old SSD, so if either one fries I am still good.
if you use safari a lot, like I do, you should consider to use click2flash. I've increased my battery from 3hrs30mins to 4hrs
My battery lasts about 3 hours with Click2Flash. Because it also bleeds battery charge when sleeping, I have to recharge every night to enable 1 hour MBA use during lunch at work. Otherwise, I risk it going dead the next day.
which MBA do you have? I've a rev.C, that has a slightly larger battery (+~500mA)
Mine's a revision A, heavily travelled for a while, SSD replaced with a non-standard model.
revA is not so good on the battery side due to the x3100: it drains too much power!
For basic light work and using WiFi, I get a max of about 2 hours on my revision B.
I'm not satisfied with the battery, but I still love my MacBook Air. For it's portability, I'm very surprised this machine does not get better battery life like the rest of Apple's laptop line.
I'm not satisfied with the battery, but I still love my MacBook Air. For it's portability, I'm very surprised this machine does not get better battery life like the rest of Apple's laptop line.
Let's be real, the battery is ****. But, it is using outdated technology and doesn't have the "newer" battery in it. Really though, its pretty bad. My PB and MBP do better.
I really don't get how it could be two hours??? Mine gets double that... do you have the display all the way up? Do you leave BT on even though probably not using it?
To me, the problem with the MBA battery isn't really how long it can last. It's easy enough to turn brightness down, close unneeded programs, stay away from video when you know you're going to be away from the outlet for a while.
No - the real problem is the unreasonable amount of time it takes to charge.
If you forget to charge your MBA overnight, something we are all going to do from time to time, you can forget leaving it plugged in while you drink your coffee and take a shower. An hour of charging isn't going to cut it - you're going to be looking for an outlet all day long. In my experience, 3 hours to totally charge it is about average.
Not so with the MBP. An hour and you'll have enough of a charge to last all day!
Bri
No - the real problem is the unreasonable amount of time it takes to charge.
If you forget to charge your MBA overnight, something we are all going to do from time to time, you can forget leaving it plugged in while you drink your coffee and take a shower. An hour of charging isn't going to cut it - you're going to be looking for an outlet all day long. In my experience, 3 hours to totally charge it is about average.
Not so with the MBP. An hour and you'll have enough of a charge to last all day!
Bri
Click on the
logo in the upper lefthand corner of the desktop and then click Preferences. Next, click Bluetooth. When you are in Bluetooth preferences, check to Show Bluetooth Status in the menu bar box. This will cause the Bluetooth icon to be displayed on the Menu Bar in the upper righthand portion of the screen, near where the Airport and Audio icons are often displayed. Then you will be able to easily turn off Bluetooth when you don't want to use it and turn it on again when you do. Of course, you can do the same thing on the Bluetooth preferences page but I much prefer to do it from the Menu Bar.
When I had my pre unibody mbp and my air the battery was good, especially if you just stuck to word processing.
However.......
When the unibody came out it just highlighted how weak it is compared to the other laptops.
Around Christmas I had to travel from Durham and back to London in a day. I was working on a paper on the way up with a video playing for 3hrs and then I was doing Photoshop work on the way back. In total near 8 hours. That's amazing in my book and such a pleasant and usable advantage.
The thing is the real world advantage of using an air is how portable it is but the poorer battery compared to the 13 mbp evens this up a lot more if you subtract the charger from your bag.
However.......
When the unibody came out it just highlighted how weak it is compared to the other laptops.
Around Christmas I had to travel from Durham and back to London in a day. I was working on a paper on the way up with a video playing for 3hrs and then I was doing Photoshop work on the way back. In total near 8 hours. That's amazing in my book and such a pleasant and usable advantage.
The thing is the real world advantage of using an air is how portable it is but the poorer battery compared to the 13 mbp evens this up a lot more if you subtract the charger from your bag.
You have highlighted the problem that faces every prospective purchaser of a laptop computer. In designing a laptop, the engineers must make it as small and lightweight as possible and at the same time make it as powerful as possible but those goals are mutually exclusive. This means that the designers have to settle for a series of compromises, which leave every laptop with significant weaknesses.
The 13 inch MBP and the MBA are classic examples. The MBP has many ports, is easily upgraded to 8Gb of RAM and a large SSD, and has a 10 hour battery. In stark contrast, the MBA is locked into its, now inadequate, 2Gb of RAM and dramatically shorter battery life. When we look at the other side of the equation, though, we see that the MBA has a remarkably thin, brilliantly designed case, and weighs only 3 pounds, while the MBP is 50 percent heavier and much harder to manipulate than the MBA. All of the compromises inherent in any laptop design guarantee that each will have weaknesses that offset its strengths. In short, there is no free lunch.