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    Powerbook Battery Life

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by sofla, Mar 11, 2005.

  1. sofla

    sofla Notebook Enthusiast

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    I have seen quite a lot of interest in battery life for the G4 Powerbook. Now, I am using a
    15 in, 1.67, with 1 gb RAM, the newest 15 in model basically but with RAM upgraded from 512 to the 1 gb. With this upgrade, which I think does extend battery life, I have been averaging over 3 hrs. An example, my 3 year old watched a kids 90 minute movie on it twice over on battery power. After that, it was shortly goners, but we had already gone over 3 hrs. with a big power burner, the DVD going, and also, I had not bothered to turn
    off Airport or Bluetooth, so they were still running in the background. Now, this is much better than I get on my Vaio laptop with a P4 3.2, or my sons Dell Inspiron also with a P4, but it is very comparable to Centrino and PM. Also, I did not bother with any of the power saver settings, which would have cut screen intensity and definetly increased batter life.
    So, if this is your concern, I don't see much of a problem.
     
    sofla, Mar 11, 2005
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  2. easymack63

    easymack63 Newbie

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    How different do you think the battery life would be if you had half the ram? Im probably going to get the 15 inch with 512 ram, but I want it to last at least the length of one movie... is this realistic in your opinion?
     
    easymack63, Mar 12, 2005
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  3. The Chad

    The Chad Newbie

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    I gave in and bought a 12" Powerbook with 1.25 gig of ram. I've gotten well over 3 hours battery life with Bluetooth and Airport on. I'm really impressed with the battery life, and the indicator at times has said that I have over 5 hours of available battery life. While I know the indicator is just an estimate based on current usage, I still think that's awesome.

    Is there a way to turn the Apple logo LED off? Does it consume that much power?
     
    The Chad, Mar 13, 2005
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  4. Rahul

    Rahul Notebook Prophet

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    I don't think there is a way to turn that LED off.
     
    Rahul, Mar 15, 2005
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  5. RadcomTxx

    RadcomTxx Notebook Deity

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    Are you talking about that big apple on the back of the monitor? if so, thats just the backlighting for the screen showing through. Basically its a hole in the case with a semi transparent symbol in it.
     
    RadcomTxx, Mar 15, 2005
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  6. teknerd122

    teknerd122 Notebook Evangelist

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    EXACTLY...if you take the powerbook outside you'll see the apple logo through the screen. =P
     
    teknerd122, Mar 15, 2005
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