Realistic battery life

Greetings to all on my first post.

I am about to purchase a new Mac, just waiting for the office to finish the paperwork. I will have the choice between a MBP and a MB. My question is the following: What is a realistic figure for the battery power between the MacBook and the Pro? One states a 5 hour figure and the MB a 6 hour figure (on various websites). On my Windoze laptop, the actual run time never approaches the claims; so what can I realistically expect on the Mac?

Thank you in advance.

Michael

 

Realistically, the Macbook gives close to 3 and a half hours of battery life. This is with the wireless active and light processing such as browsing websites or word processing. No bluetooth active.

A MBP should give close to the same depending on the applications and screen brightness.

 

I got around two hours of heavy usage of my Macbook. (Started below full, got 1:40~ -- playing games so that the fan was always cranked up on high) ... I get at least around 3:30 of light usage. I think the 6 hour figure is with the screen and wireless turned off, or something.

Edit: These're all with low brightness.

 

what i like about the battery monitoring system, it's that it's actually acurate on the mac.
My PCs always gave me wrong figures of how much time was left in the battery.

light usage on MBPpro15.4 for me is 2:30 to 3:00, under heavy usage i get about 1:30 to 2:00

 

I can pull 4 hours on my MBP. But that is with light usage and low brightness.

Which really, if you keep brightness up, it obviously won't get much battery life.

I can get about 1.5-2 hours playing WoW with low-med brightness.

 

MBP - ya, I've pushed past 4 hours under filemaker, word and illustrator, less than half brightness, bluetooth and wifi off. 5 hours would be if you just stared at a blank screen and didn't touch the thing.

MB should last a bit longer, read this http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook/faq/macbook-battery-life.html article comparing both in realworld tests

 

I want to know how that guy got 4 hours with the screen on half brightness and wifi, bt, and iTunes... the Macbook does have a very aggressive screen dimming feature, so if he let that kick in a lot, then that might explain it...

 

I get around 4 hours with my MacBook when using it in a "real world" situation. Meaning web browsing, chatting in IMs, writing emails, listening to music in iTunes. Thats with bluetooth off and screen set to half.

Even with screen on full brightness, wifi and bluetooth on and playing music videos in iTunes (purchased from iTunes) it took 3 full hours to bring the battery to its knees.

One time I watched a movie that was 1:45 long while talking with friends in IMs and still had about 2.5 hours left using the settings stated at the begining of the post.

Much better than the 2 hours I was barely able to squeeze out of my HP system.

 

I work away from AC power on my Macbook frequently. Usually I have brightness at maximum and either WiFi or BlueTooth on (but not both). Continious business use (Office, Safari, Chat etc) results in a minimum of 2.5 hours and a Max of 3.5 hours.

The battery meter on the Macbook does seem pretty accurate and while I do not normally work this way, I can get the meter to register 4 hours if I dim my display considerably.

 

Battery life is one of those fickle things that's hard to understand. It depends on whether you can stand having low brightness on your screen. Typically though, everyone will use their laptop with wireless, so you will never get 5 hours out of a MBP or 6 hours from a MB.

My best guess:
MacBook: 4-5 hours.
MacBook Pro: 3-4 hours.

Sure, these estimates are a bit lower, but this is using your laptop comfortably as opposed to doing everything you can to save some juice. The numbers quoted from Apple should really say "upto this amount", so it's not so blatantly false under normal use.

 

Have gone close to 5 hrs on just surfing the web and low brightness on my mBp - can easily get 3-4 if you're watching a dvd etc.

 

I get anywhere between 2.5 to 3.5+ hours on one full charge to about 10%. To a full drain, it was on sleep for hours on end from 10-15%.