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What's your battery's mAH (June 2009 Unibody only!)

5400 +- 50

Don't know how you guys are getting 3-4 hours use with this battery. If you watch HD youtube videos, you're stressing the CPUa lot, it uses up 1 entire core. I like to watch HD flash videos and boy does that drain the battery life, even regular youtube videos drains it a lot. Then I'm downloading files in the background. And when the CPU heats up the fans kick in, thus draining the battery life even more. Really if you want to achieve 5+ hours, you really need to be doing nothing, browsing with one webpage, disable flash and have the screen brightness on the lowest setting.

5450 mAH is 5450 mAH and Apple can't change the laws of physics, there's no clever mechanics to power drain. The less you use the more you have, the more you use the less you have. When I use the computer I multitask a few things, but even this mild usage (downloading and watching youtube videos) will put a serious dent in the amount of time you get. They really need to get rid of the Superdrive and make that space all battery, then you seriously could get 6+ hours using the macbook properly. Not like now, watching the battery meter, "oh am I using it too much, I'll stop my user experience for you battery because apple says up to 7 hours". Does anyone else realise what a crock of doodoo this is. How can the 13" battery be equivalent to the 15"? 13" has 58WHr battery ~ 5450 mAH =/= 15" 73WHr battery ~ 6850mAH so either Apple is shipping out different laptops to reviewers or someone is telling fibs.
 
hvoy9k.png
 
What's the point of the laptop if you're only going to get a few battery cycles? Do you just have it sit there on your desk all day?
 
swb1192 said:
What's the point of the laptop if you're only going to get a few battery cycles? Do you just have it sit there on your desk all day?
Click to expand...

1) Some people just got their laptops.
2) Some people could use the mobility, but the majority of the time they don't.
 
this new 7 hour battery in the 15" will make me want to use battery more, i will prob need to replace every 2 years.

cant wait for my new 15" :D
 
swb1192 said:
What's the point of the laptop if you're only going to get a few battery cycles? Do you just have it sit there on your desk all day?
Click to expand...

Some of use have access to an outlet when we're out.

My library at university has a million outlets on every desk. You almost have to go out of your way not to plug your laptop in. So why not?
 
swb1192 said:
What's the point of the laptop if you're only going to get a few battery cycles? Do you just have it sit there on your desk all day?
Click to expand...

A large chunk of the new owners are students using them for school (or something similar)...and oh, surprise, it's the summer!
 
RevoDS said:
A large chunk of the new owners are students using them for school (or something similar)...and oh, surprise, it's the summer!
Click to expand...

Hmm I guess? I just feel abnormal. I got mine in December 08 and have 220 cycles... I only charge it when it's at my desk.
 
RevoDS said:
Calibrated my 13" the day I got it, been keeping it plugged in most of the time since (FYI to those saying it's bad...that's impossible considering it stops charging once it's full and simply runs directly from the power source)
Click to expand...
That's why it's bad. It's bad to keep a battery fully charged and never using it, which is effectively what you're doing if you run it plugged in all the time. You need to get the electrons moving once in a while, give them a little exercise, otherwise the battery will deteriorate quicker. You're not keeping the battery in mint condition by not using it, you're only accelerating its aging process that way.

That's why Apple recommends discharging the battery to 50% if you plan to not use a laptop for a while. Storing it with a full charge is bad, storing it fully drained is even worse. As long as you're using the laptop you don't have the option to keep the charge at 50%. So instead they recommend discharging it fully once a month, and state that the ideal user is a commuter who uses the laptop on the train every day and plugs it in only while he's at the office and at home.
 
Anuba said:
That's why it's bad. It's bad to keep a battery fully charged and never using it, which is effectively what you're doing if you run it plugged in all the time. You need to get the electrons moving once in a while, give them a little exercise, otherwise the battery will deteriorate quicker. You're not keeping the battery in mint condition by not using it, you're only accelerating its aging process that way.

That's why Apple recommends discharging the battery to 50% if you plan to not use a laptop for a while. Storing it with a full charge is bad, storing it fully drained is even worse. As long as you're using the laptop you don't have the option to keep the charge at 50%. So instead they recommend discharging it fully once a month, and state that the ideal user is a commuter who uses the laptop on the train every day and plugs it in only while he's at the office and at home.
Click to expand...

Possible, but you're talking about an extended period here, while I'm referring to a shorter term view. Using it on the battery every few days is better than using up your cycles on incomplete charges and thus reducing its capacity, right?
 
mah 5364
cycles 12
condition good
98%

no calibration has been done. i plug it in when i see the reserve message & unplug once the adapter turns green.

i was getting 7 hours without a charge, but now i get 5 hours or less. which is great! i also have vmware fusion running often and a couple remote desktops open. the vmware will burn up the battery in 2 hours or less. wonder if that is why i haven't seen +7 hours since?

edit: for comparison my almost identical spec'd dell latitude e6400 gets 6 hours with the 9 cell battery.
 
From System Profiler on 15 inch

Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 6419
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 6608
 
From System Profiler: (15" 2.53Ghz uMBP)

Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 6944
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 6944
 
tdream said:
5400 +- 50

Don't know how you guys are getting 3-4 hours use with this battery. If you watch HD youtube videos, you're stressing the CPUa lot, it uses up 1 entire core.
Click to expand...

Sort of a silly question..I know how to check the CPU usage in Acitivy Monitor but how do you know which core is being used up?
 
cababah said:
Sort of a silly question..I know how to check the CPU usage in Acitivy Monitor but how do you know which core is being used up?
Click to expand...

The left or the right? Does it matter? If you look at the process in Activity Monitor you can see the percentage of CPU usage. 100% = 1 entire core and sometimes apps use more than 100%, rarely though.
 
tdream said:
The left or the right? Does it matter? If you look at the process in Activity Monitor you can see the percentage of CPU usage. 100% = 1 entire core and sometimes apps use more than 100%, rarely though.
Click to expand...

Yeah I didn't mean to differentiate the 2 cores, just how you know when one is being used up.

Thanks for the reply...so what is the maximum usage someone would see?
 
Current battery capacity: 5268 mAh
Original battery capacity: 5450 mAh

96%
16 Cycles
5 weeks old

Damn, I was used to have new batteries staying over 100% for a while... :( I guess I'll have to get used to this one! :) Anyway, the 6-7h battery life is real and I really love it!
 
Was just bought this weekend and calibrated (15" 2.8)
Current capacity: 6625 mAh
Original capacity: 6500 mAh
100% health
12 Battery-loadcycles (??? only charged twice...)
5 weeks old
 
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