Is This Normal Battery Use?

[Siron]

I turned on my MBA this morning after it had been charging overnight so it was at 100% when I started watching Steve's keynote speech. The speech lasted exactly 1 hour and 45 minutes and when it was over my battery was at 15%.
Now I know that Apple claims 5 hours battery life but everyone takes that with a pinch of salt, but an hour and 45 minutes is ridiculous - I couldn't even watch a movie in that time.
What are other peoples experiences?
Alan

 

[iRabbit]

Playing video like that is going to reduce battery life... though I can't say for sure if your experience was normal (I just got my Air last night). What I can say is that I started working on my MBA this morning at 9am... battery seemed to last about 4 hours with me using Safari pretty intensely, email, adium, and one short video. I had about 30 minutes left when I plugged in.

It does seem to take a while for the battery to charge though... I've had it plugged in since 1pm and now, 3 hours later, it says about 30 minutes left until full charge. I wonder if THAT'S normal? LOL

 

[Olvenskol]

Playing videos will chew through the battery fairly fast... I think that's normal (certainly the machine is much hotter then, indicating more power use).

Routine use (web, e-mail, office apps), my machine will go 3.5 - 4 hours on battery.

Recharging does take awhile, especially the last 20%. That's normal. Remember that you only have a 45W power adaptor compared to the 60W one for a MBP. And for some reason the Air trickle charges the last 20%.

Also, you'll probably find that recharging goes faster once you've had the machine for a couple weeks. There is some sort of adaption process that I don't really understand, but does seem to make some sort of difference.

 

[iRabbit]

I brought my MBA to work today... Opened it about 10:00am and used it periodically (IM, Web, Email) with it open the entire time (display sleeping from time to time). Battery still had a little over an hour left when I left the office at 2:30pm.

Seems with typical web-type usage (without video) battery life is quite okay.

 

[ayeying]

Recharging does take awhile, especially the last 20%. That's normal. Remember that you only have a 45W power adaptor compared to the 60W one for a MBP. And for some reason the Air trickle charges the last 20%.

My experience is that apple batteries do a trickle charge regardless of the wattage from the power adapter. And the MBP uses 85 watts, MB uses 60 watts and MBA uses 45 watts.

I brought my MBA to work today... Opened it about 10:00am and used it periodically (IM, Web, Email) with it open the entire time (display sleeping from time to time). Battery still had a little over an hour left when I left the office at 2:30pm.

Seems with typical web-type usage (without video) battery life is quite okay.

I get usually the same battery life as you. I bring it to work at 8am.. leave it open running mild-intensive office programs, some browsers, itunes and such. Leave at 1230 and still have about 30 minutes - 1 hour life left.

 

[Savagestorm]

Well I don't know how long you've had your air, but the performance of new batteries will increase after 10 battery cycles. It should soon start to charge quicker too. Doing CPU intensive tasks for prolonged periods of time will have a greater effect in battery life because of both increased current draw and temprature increase, which is effectily a increase in resistance, therefore more power is required.

 

[iHerzeleid]

How was your brightness setting on your computer while you watched the video?

 

[maestrokev]

How's your battery

Well I don't know how long you've had your air, but the performance of new batteries will increase after 10 battery cycles. It should soon start to charge quicker too. Doing CPU intensive tasks for prolonged periods of time will have a greater effect in battery life because of both increased current draw and temprature increase, which is effectily a increase in resistance, therefore more power is required.

I just drained my battery completey and recharged (as per Apple's battery maintenance instructions) and it took about 3hrs to charge to 95%. I'm not sure if the current battery capacity of 4880mAh is good or not. What are you guys getting.