Poor battery life with 13.3" 4gigs ram variant?

[runnin17]

I can guarantee you that Apple did not conduct the battery life tests at 60% brightness. That is very bright. If you really want to test out your battery you need to go into to system profiler and look at the battery information that is found under the "power" section.

My battery reads 5855 mAh and has gone through two cycles.

Like I said you should not be needing to use your laptop at 60% brightness all the time. If anything 40% should be plenty bright. You have to remeber that the screen is the most power hungry part of your Air.

 

[gwsat]

Wow, not sure what I did to come across as arrogant, but I am really just inquiring here out of curiosity and the slight suspicion that my battery may be suboptimal or my display less bright. I'll ask Apple if they did their tests at 25% or less brightness with WiFi and Bluetooth off and see what comes out. I'll be honest and say again that I highly doubt that these were the test conditions. And for the record, having the display at <25% makes it DIM. If e.g. I have a paper or book next to my screen at normal-low background lighting in my room, and move my eyes between the display and paper, the display is SIGNIFICANTLY dimmer, I'd say about 3 times dimmer, than the paper, and my pupils necessarily need to adjust. I'd call optimal brightness setting when it is as bright as the paper/book I'm looking at. So, my display appears to be MUCH dimmer than yours or you like to look at dim displays.

Room lighting and what else your are doing while using your computer play a big part in how much screen brightness you need for comfortable viewing. For example, if I am paying bills and going back and forth between the bill I am paying and the computer, to use Quicken and my bank's Web site, I have a table lamp on and the screen's brightness set at about 40 percent. If I am watching TV while using the computer, though, I usually have the brightness set at about 20 percent or less. If I am alternately looking at documents and the computer screen without using the table lamp, the brightness setting us usually somewhere in between.

 

[aristobrat]

Wow, not sure what I did to come across as arrogant, but I am really just inquiring here out of curiosity and the slight suspicion that my battery may be suboptimal or my display less bright. I'll ask Apple if they did their tests at 25% or less brightness with WiFi and Bluetooth off and see what comes out.

At the bottom of the Specs page for the MacBook Air, Apple states exactly what they did with their battery test:

# Testing conducted by Apple in September 2010 using preproduction 1.86GHz Intel Core 2 Duo–based 13-inch MacBook Air units and preproduction 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo–based 11-inch MacBook Air units. The wireless productivity test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing 25 popular websites with display brightness set to 50%. Standby testing conducted by Apple in September 2010 using preproduction 1.86GHz and 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo–based 13-inch MacBook Air units as well as preproduction 1.4GHz and 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo–based 11-inch MacBook Air units. The standby test measures battery life by allowing a system, connected to a wireless network, to enter deep sleep mode with Safari and Mail applications launched and all system settings left at default. Battery life varies by use and configuration. See http://www.apple.com/batteries for more information.

http://www.apple.com/macbookair/specs-13inch.html

Well, OK, they didn't mention bluetooth, but obviously WiFi was on, and Flash wasn't installed.

 

[dmelgar]

That battery life doesn't sound very impressive.

I have a 11" MBA, 1.6/4/128. I used it in a conference the other day, ran all day, editing, surfing the web, 7 hours use and I still have 30% power left.
I've gotten over 9 hours with just light web browsing and editing.
And the 11" is rated much worse than the 13" at only 5 hours. So Apple's rating can be considered conservative.

On the other hand, I've noticed that its VERY dependent on how busy the machine is. If I'm only doing very light CPU work, I can get 9 hours. But if I keep the CPU spun up working on something (like flash, or compression), the battery can drain in less than 2 hours.

And the brightness, I don't see how someone could use the display at much more than 50% brightness. The only time I could remotely use that is when I've had direct sunlight hitting the screen. If you're inside, its like trying to read while staring into a headlight.

 

[zstar]

That battery life doesn't sound very impressive.

I have a 11" MBA, 1.6/4/128. I used it in a conference the other day, ran all day, editing, surfing the web, 7 hours use and I still have 30% power left.
I've gotten over 9 hours with just light web browsing and editing.
And the 11" is rated much worse than the 13" at only 5 hours. So Apple's rating can be considered conservative.

On the other hand, I've noticed that its VERY dependent on how busy the machine is. If I'm only doing very light CPU work, I can get 9 hours. But if I keep the CPU spun up working on something (like flash, or compression), the battery can drain in less than 2 hours.

And the brightness, I don't see how someone could use the display at much more than 50% brightness. The only time I could remotely use that is when I've had direct sunlight hitting the screen. If you're inside, its like trying to read while staring into a headlight.

Wow, how can you even get 7 hours use with all that on an 11" MBA AND yet have 30% left over. I have a 13" and havent even come CLOSE to 7 hours on BASIC web surfing (no flash - click to flash installed) and itunes. I'm starting to get really worried about my battery now, have you done any calibration for your computer?

 

[jay77hk]

I'm jealous of people getting 10 hours+ of battery life, i barely can get 5 hours.

Config : 2.13Ghz, 4Gb Ram, 256 HD
Soft opened : Firefox, Skype, Outlook
Wifi on, BT off, less than 20% CPU usage
No flash, light browsing
Brightness : 9 bars over 16

Calibrated twice already, everytime with less than 5 hours running.
What's wrong ? Should i return it ?

 

[jay77hk]

50% with 2:21 left !

 

[foiden]

Is it actually easier for you to see things at 12.5% brightness than at 50%? If so, what do you do e.g. when driving on a sunny day? Do you need sunglasses to make out the traffic, signs, etc? I'm not trying to be confrontational, seriously just wondering.

I wouldn't say easier, just that I see it very adequate at that light. But I do tend to have a bit more night vision than some. Ever since I was kid, I remember that it almost felt like my eyes were a little closer to dialation than some. I don't use sunglasses, but I'm a little sensitive to light. Unless a room is pitch black, I can often make out shapes if I need to navigate.

Not sure if that is it, but it may at least put you in a frameset of why I don't have eye strain, for the lower brightness levels. Then again, I tend to use my machines the most at night, and thus the rooms are only modestly lit. When there is a lot of natural sunlight in the room, I need to bump it up to more like 40%.

 

[Scott6666]

I'm jealous of people getting 10 hours+ of battery life, i barely can get 5 hours.

Config : 2.13Ghz, 4Gb Ram, 256 HD
Soft opened : Firefox, Skype, Outlook
Wifi on, BT off, less than 20% CPU usage
No flash, light browsing
Brightness : 9 bars over 16

Calibrated twice already, everytime with less than 5 hours running.
What's wrong ? Should i return it ?

It takes more power to run the French version. French is a very complex language, particularly the spelling. The Spanish version runs almost as long as the English version. Apple does all it's testing in English so YMMV.

 

[MikeinJapan]

It takes more power to run the French version. French is a very complex language, particularly the spelling. The Spanish version runs almost as long as the English version. Apple does all it's testing in English so YMMV.

I am sitting at 7:31 with the same specs with a Japanese operating system and was typing and riding in Japanese before this. I am pretty sure that French isn't as complex as Japanese.

 

[peraevum]

And the brightness, I don't see how someone could use the display at much more than 50% brightness. The only time I could remotely use that is when I've had direct sunlight hitting the screen. If you're inside, its like trying to read while staring into a headlight.

Just wondering - does anyone on this forum actually like using their laptops at 100% brightness? I currently have a MBP, and when I'm plugged in, I will set it to 100% unless I'm in pitch black. I love being able to see all my colors clearly. I'm 27, so I'm not blind, but I appreciate the good contrast nevertheless. Maybe it's just because I grew up putting my face right into a bright CRT growing up.

 

[Scott6666]

I am sitting at 7:31 with the same specs with a Japanese operating system and was typing and riding in Japanese before this. I am pretty sure that French isn't as complex as Japanese.

I'm pretty sure that a number of the chips in the Air are made in Japanese foundries, notably the Toshiba SSD. Japanese chips are known to be optimized for the Japanese language so it's not a surprise to me that the batteries in a Japanese language Mac would run longer than the French version. I don't think you can compare this to the OP's machine. Apples and Oranges in my opinion. We need to compare French Airs to French Airs to see if jay77hk really has a problem.

 

[jay77hk]

I'm pretty sure that a number of the chips in the Air are made in Japanese foundries, notably the Toshiba SSD. Japanese chips are known to be optimized for the Japanese language so it's not a surprise to me that the batteries in a Japanese language Mac would run longer than the French version. I don't think you can compare this to the OP's machine. Apples and Oranges in my opinion. We need to compare French Airs to French Airs to see if jay77hk really has a problem.

Just checked out a french forum http://forums.macgeneration.com/mac...-et-jamais-depasse-5h-de-batterie-504842.html, they are having exactly the same battery life (from 7 to 10 hours) There is nothing to do with french language !

I'll try a last re-install then will bring back to the Apple store for sure !

 

[Scott6666]

PS. I was only kidding about the language. Would cause no difference whatsoever.