MacBook Pro Battery Life

[applekid]

I got the mid-range MacBook Pro about a month ago. It's a great machine without a doubt. I'll be using mine for school at College Park studying Computer Science.

Anyways, I was wondering what kind of battery life people were getting. I keep reading articles about bad batteries getting under 3 hours or even worse. I think my MacBook Pro's battery is doing well. Granted it's under the 5 hours Apple likes to claim and just about every other PC maker, but I get nearly 4 hours surfing the web, coding, and listening to music. I can play WoW for nearly 3 hours. Of course, when I switch over to Windows, my battery life drops to like just over 2 hours for gaming. Not that bad, in my opinion. How's everybody' else's MBP's?

 

[benthewraith]

I got the mid-range MacBook Pro about a month ago. It's a great machine without a doubt. I'll be using mine for school at College Park studying Computer Science.

Anyways, I was wondering what kind of battery life people were getting. I keep reading articles about bad batteries getting under 3 hours or even worse. I think my MacBook Pro's battery is doing well. Granted it's under the 5 hours Apple likes to claim and just about every other PC maker, but I get nearly 4 hours surfing the web, coding, and listening to music. I can play WoW for nearly 3 hours. Of course, when I switch over to Windows, my battery life drops to like just over 2 hours for gaming. Not that bad, in my opinion. How's everybody' else's MBP's?

Okay, word of advise. Don't install the IOUSBFamily.kext update, and you're fine (because it enables the photobooth forcequit hack to work again). This gives much better battery life than QuietMBP and MagicNoiseKiller (at least for QuietMBP).

 

[bbrosemer]

Someone is going to Maryland, anyway have fun there I know a few kids there they love it, also I get amazing battery life with my 17''MBP I got nearly 5hrs once just browsing the web.

 

[celebrian23]

why does my mbp suck so much? I only get 3 hours (just browsing the web and listening to itunes and maybe ichat)

 

[Josias]

The 15" MBP has a bit different battery from 17". 60 Wh vs. 68 Wh. I get 5 hours on my MB with AirPort on, and 4 windows open in Safari. You should get around the same on 17" MBP, and around an hour less with 15" MBP...

 

[benthewraith]

why does my mbp suck so much? I only get 3 hours (just browsing the web and listening to itunes and maybe ichat)

Have you tried turning the brightness down on your LCD? Helps a LOT.

You can also, if you don't use it, disable Bluetooth. This too helps immensely.

On that note, does Interference Robustness power intensive.

 

[celebrian23]

I rarely use it on battery anyways (the whine gives me bad headaches). I always have bluetooth disabled and on those rare occaisons when I do use battery, I set brightness to 5 bars typically

 

[benthewraith]

I rarely use it on battery anyways (the whine gives me bad headaches). I always have bluetooth disabled and on those rare occaisons when I do use battery, I set brightness to 5 bars typically

Nah, 1 bar is good enough for me. Then again, I just have gotten used to my sucky ass dell being that low, so....