2011 Macbook Pro battery drainage

Look.... to all those people downplaying this issue and defending Apple... I've used many MacBook Pros over the past 4 years. I just got this new 15" MBP with the integrated battery. Every other one I've had has had a removable battery. I also have owned and used every single Apple laptop ever made. Every one. That includes the PowerBook 2400c. I've taken many of these latter apart. I've refurbished batteries for Newton MessagePads...

I know these rigs inside out, and I know the kind of battery life Apple's portables have gotten in the past. This brand new 15" MBP has terrible battery life. I get maybe 2.5-3 hours of real world use on a charge. It seems worse than my older MBP dual-core 2 with removable battery when it was new.

The reason why nobody gives a crap that Apple says "up to 7 hours" is that Steve Jobs, Apple itself... has marketed the **** out of this integrated battery... doing videos on the engineering of it... etc. Saying how integrating the battery allows them to put more cells into the units because of the space saved from battery housings... and that this gives unprecendeted battery life.

This was not a minor point in both their presentation of these new batteries and the way they have marketed them. In fact, significant focus has been placed on this.

To defend Apple when there're many people complaining of battery life that is poorer than previous units is unacceptable.

Forget all the people commenting about using certain applications etc. and that it's the reason why your battery life is bad. That's hogwash. In my testing, I haven't changed any of my computing habits and my old MBP seemed to have better battery life. In fact, if anything, I'm not as heavy on this new one as I was on my old one. Therefore, it's the unit, not the applications I use.

Lion might be complicit in this. I'm going to try reseting the PRAM as well as a few other things suggested in here. But I would hope the incredulous people would stop and that we can work towards determining whether these new batteries are the real culprit, or if Lion is, or a combination of the two.

I am currently using my MacBook Pro which I only got on Saturday 10th, and just browsing the internet, it started on 4:37 battery left, now it has creeped up to 5:18. From this, I think you have to wait a while for it to tell you how much battery life you have left. Just be grateful with what you have, the up to 7 hours battery life was one of the reasons I moved from PC to Mac, and it hasn't failed me yet. Battery life from my last PC was rubbish, I was supposed to have 3 hours battery, but I only had 1, and the laptop was only a year old. Even if I had 3 hours battery life, it would do me fine as I am mostly sitting at my desk at home using it or at college where I can plug it in, although it had to be tested by the electric people (health and safety in the UK! What can you do?).

If you want to save battery life a little, here are a few pointers:

1. Have the screen dimmed a little, so it isn't using much battery,

2. Have the keyboard lights off, or on a little as this can also use a lot of battery,

3. Turn bluetooth off! It is one of the most biggest battery consumers out there! (Especially for phones)

4. Don't have much stuff running in the background. For instance, if your iTunes is open and you don't need it running, close it! Right click it and press quit.]

Hope this helps!

Matt.

I have had my Macbook since March 2009. I was getting 5hrs of battery life. When on holiday I would use the MBP to watch DVDs for 2-2.5hrs and still have loads of time left to surf the net etc.

However, very excitedly, I uploaded Lion to my mac and can honestly say the change to my battery was like night and day .. I now only benefit from 1hr 20ish mins from full 100% charge. I've taken screen shots of the time at 100% and then at 1%.

I want Lion off my computer and despite wanting to upload Mountain Lion in the summer when it comes out, I won't be as I am worried that will also reduce my battery life.

So started at 5hrs and had that until Lion and now only get 1hr 20ish .. gutted. I love Apple and the MBP but the battery life is making me doubt wanting to buy another macbook or an ipad.

Just stumbled on this post cause of a similar battery issue with a macbook pro from April 2011. Three months out of warranty and the logic board needed to be replaced. Apple products are very pricy to say the least (2300.00) for mine. If they say up to 7 hours you should be able to get 7 hours by adjusting the settings. The most I have ever had is 5 hours after a full charge. I'm a long time Apple user and the most stable machine I had by them was a 1999 Powermac G3 (yosemite). Just thought I'd add my two cents. I do have Automatic graphics switching and other energy settings on to preserve battery life.

try giving this a read,

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=9875442&postcount=23

I just charged my new MacBook Pro. It was at 99% and after 5 min I'm already down to 89%. I have Firefox and maybe one other program running. What is going on with this?

No, it's supposed to last 7 hours OR LESS. That's what "UP TO 7 hours" means.

That's why I don't like having these debates about Mac vs PC. I just like to be fair and balanced and give credit where credit is do!

I can strongly recommend Kingston's Apple specific memory modules. 🙂

No one forced you to buy a computer with a built-in battery. You chose it all by yourself.

You should also be aware of, that many customers buying cheap crap on eBay, don't bother to follow it up, since the batteries were cheap from the start anyway. Just sayin' 😉

Congrats! How much did you pay for the battery? If you care to share the seller namne (if it was on eBay) you could do it here, and I can pass it on to the guy who recently bought my old MB. 🙂

I correct myself that Lithium-ion batteries are cheaper to manufacture then lithium-ion polymere batteries.

The new MacBook Pro's use Lithium POLYMER battery's, they take a while to 'warm up' after a few (10 ish) rechrges it will give you the full time.