Battery life on 2011 Macbook Pro's

Ok, I hear that MBP included Macs have a very high battery life especially if you are running OS X.

I have a 2.0 quad core system that is as new as it gets and I have managed to get only 3 hours at max in my computer. What secret recipe do Mac users use to have 6-7 hours of surfing, writing, movie watching experience on Macbook Pros? My battery is around 6973 - 6995 mAh (full capacity fluctuates) but the battery menu says it is 'normal' so I can't just go to apple and say replace my battery, can I?

The most I have gotten on a computer is about 6 hours fresh out of box Asus 1000he netbook I used to have that ran XP.

PS I have done the power reset that you do by holding down the shift key with the power key that is supposed to restore laptop to original settings for my network reset that didn't work for internet. I had to reset the system configuration files to make my computer work at the university so done all that.

 

Are you sure your not running on the dedicated graphics card. Download gfxcardstatus and make sure you are on the intel hd300 for battery life. Also note that things like chrome playing flash stuff will trigger your dedicated gfx card so that is probably why you are geting 3 hours

 

Ok I will try it, though I thought apple wasn't using a dedicated graphics card in the 2011 model. I know people who have 2010 MBPs and they weren't all that happy with the graphics performance of the 2011 MBPs even with the GDDR5 boost.

But still it is a bummer. I know companies upscale their products (the Asus 1000he was supposed to run 9 hours!) but mac users doing it themselves really is disconcerting. If the flash issue is true, then I am sure other mac users face this as well but I haven't see it filter out in the reviews.

 

The 15" all have dedicated graphics. The people who arent happy are probably referring to the base 2.0 6470 GFX card the one your model has. The 2.2 Model has the 6750 which is ALOT better tan the 330m.

 

I'm getting 7-8 hours on my 13" 2011 MBP. That's std browsing, etc, running at about half brightness. I've found I lose about an hour + going to full bright.

I think it goes without saying that video kills your battery pretty quick. Likewise games do too. I'd have a tough time running past 4 hours doing either of these tasks.

One thing that surprised me that it kills my battery so badly is Skype. Just leaving it running in the background I take about a 2 hour hit on battery life. Look for apps that run in the background that a constantly polling network or internet resources. (IM, drobo, etc)

 

Yes, I checked and mine is like 256 gb GDDR5 while the 2.2 model is 1 gb GDDR5, but that is like about $350 more. I think this works fine for me (don't game that much) and I do have a vaio 13 inch that is a gig vram, though the fan runs on that thing a lot.

I downloaded the program and it automatically was showing integrated for battery setting. I will how that works out the next time I am on battery mode. The mac should have a switch like they do in vaio so that if you are on auto mode, the vaio will always run on integrated mode on battery and you can save settings for each mode as well.

 

I have been getting 10-12h on my mbp 13, brightness on half (dont want to bleed my eyes), keyboard backlighting off, bluetooth off, wireless on

 

Yes that would be a useful feature. Right now apples implementation of GFX switching is a little bit buggy because other applications design their programs to use stuff like OpenCL which no matter what kind of application it is will trigger the Discrete Graphics. Only Apple applications are able to switch properly which is a shame.

On a side note the Video Ram really isn't what you should look at when you look at graphics power. Look at the shaders/processors thats what should really matter. A weak card with 2 Gigs of VRam will only utilize like 128mb. Most of the time the VRam won't even be fully utilized by the graphics card.

 

the amount of RAM you need is a function of your screen resolution (and for the lower end cards, the quality of textures). It's not any more complicated than that.

 

On my C2D system, 13" I was getting 5 hours of batter life.

 

It seems the program has done the trick as it I am close to 1.5 hours on my Mac right now, but the battery is at 71%. I will see how far does it run on one charge.

@Mr MM, what is there to do if you turn off wifi and pretty much everything? I could supposedly get nine hours on my netbook if shut down Wifi, lowered brightness to kill my eyes etc but that is not everyday use, is it? My brightness right now is close to half but I am browsing and running flash as well.

 

I never said that wifi is off, its on. bluetooth on the other hand is indeed off, I have no use for it to be on. Nor the keyboard backlighting, I touch type, its unnecessarily distracting.

the brightness for me is that way, since I work and use the thing, when I wake up (5am) to when I sleep (1am)

I dont run flash on my mac for some reasons:

They serve little purpose
I dont use youtube or other video sites
For principle, since I had a gf that worked in the accessibility area of the w3c, I never have used flash anymore, nor in my sites, I prefer to use html 5
I have flash blocker and add blocker installed on chrome


one thing that you have to notice is my usage of the pcs, I dont eat content like you guys do, my content is written, and I dont listen to music that much when Im at work.

I work when at work, thus running vms and managing the IT daily fiascos. So it goes up and down the battery life depending on the day, thus a 10-12h.

PS: flash just kills the battery on any notebook, more so on any mac

PPS: I also dont game on battery

 

I actually went close to 3.5 hours with flash and wifi on. I have 16% battery left so probably would go at most a half hour though probably less on it.

 

do please describe your usages, if the battery is bad, you can go to the apple store and they will change it for a new

 

I am on the browser and am running flash a lot and sometimes even downloading videos.

How would apple change my battery if battery is showing up as 'normal' in the system.

 

you are playing flash games and videos?

apple changed several batteries after they reported abysmal battery life.

judging by what you are telling me, your battery life is what it is, should be a little higher, imo

 

Your battery life seems normal from what I have been reading.