MBP/MB external battery pack

So while looking for sites to sell replacement batteries (if I could get a better deal than from Apple) I came across this external battery pack whcih connects to the mag safe and is supposed to give the MBP a few extra hours.

Wondering if any of you have used this, and if so, how well it has worked. It's kinda pricey, but I'd jump for it if I could pull an extra 3-4 hours on top of the new battery I'd pick up.

I'm going to try to dig some reviews up if no one on here has used it. I don't want to spend $200 on one of these if it doesn't work, where I could just buy a spare battery.

Currently, my battery will only give me about 45 min under web surfing only load (1/4 brightness).... Granted it's seen a lot of use, but still... was hoping it would last closer to 2 years (it's 15 months old now).

26% health and 314 cycles according to iStat.

and if this little thing works, I will probably spring for it... will save me from buying something like the Dell D630 so I can use Eclipse for 3-4 hours without plugging in.

 

why not buy another battery for less than that?

~$100 off ebay

 

Because I don't want to have to shut down. I need at least 3-4 hours of continuous power. Shutting down to replace the battery really sucks. Granted, having an external battery pack isn't elegent... but it also holds almost 3x as much power as the normal battery. And I already have to buy a new battery :-/

BTW, found a few reviews... Don't have the link to the one site, but the reviewer said he was able to get 7 hours, at full brightness with Word, Firefox and Parallels running. Pretty damn impressive I have to say!

I think I might order that tomorrow. If I do, I'll have to write a review on it.

 

hollownail do you have any idea whether these battery packs can be purchased in the UK?

 

No idea. I don't see why not unless there are some export laws regulating the shipping.

I'd email batterygeeks and see if they can help you out there.

 

Hmm. Going to do that. Thanks.

 

Hrm... so looking into it... I found one site that said they were able to pull 7 hours off the pack. But another who said he only got the minimum 5 hours from the pack with minimum brightness and little activity.
That second review has caused somewhat of a scandal. Batterygeeks.com is on the consumerists bad list now. So much for going with them. :-/

dragon eye review

looking for alternatives at this point.... fastmac.com seems to sell mac batteries that hold a slightly higher charge. not much, but a little. and they're cheaper.

*edit*

after reading a few more reviews, they state that the fastmac batteries actually have a lower mAh then Apples. So, I ordered the one from Apple. Lets hope this one lasts up to Apples "80% life at 300 cycles" claim.

 

hollow, what exactly are you doing with eclipse?

I've gotten a full 2.5 to 3 hours of coding/running with eclipse and Cog (music player) before. Granted, it was minimum brightness and I have dashboard disabled but still 2.5 is pretty decent and expectable I'd say.

 

Well, I can only get an hour doing basically nothing on this battery. I do a lot of plugin development and other things. The specifics I can't talk bout. But I constantly have it recompiling and it kills the battery.

I hope to get the new battery from Apple (I should have ordered from amazon) and we'll see how that goes.

 

i have changed the method my mac sleeps. it writes directly to HD now, and uses no battery, needing no power. it takes about 30 seconds to write to HD (i do have 4gb of ram to write), but it works just like windows hibernate.

have a look, may be a decent solution for you to switch the packs...
http://www.macworld.com/article/53471/2006/10/sleepmode.html

stock config leaves power going to ram, which means it needs a constant power source. Once that power source runs out, it does what mine does right away, hibernates.

 

Hey thats pretty slick kgeier. Mines set to 3. I had no idea it had a hidden hibernate mode and that it always wrote the contents of RAM to hard disc. I'll have to play with that tonight!

 

could add to your solution, glad to help out.

 

with the macbook pro you can change the battery without fully shutting down, just put your notebook to sleep, change it and come out of sleep like normal.

they have a little couple minutes worth battery to maintain the ram while changing the battery.

 

hollownail how is the new battery? Are there any signs of the new one being better than the one bundled with your MBP?

I have seen quite a few posts where people's orignal battery did not last them that long and no where near the 80% charge for 300 cycles.

 

I won't be getting it till next week, or whenever apple happens to ship it.