Macbook Air 13 4Gb and battery life

First of all, you should calibrate your battery. Details on the Apple support site but in essence, run the battery down to empty, leave for a couple of hours, then charge without interruption to full and leave on mains for a few more hours. It may be that your battery monitor is reporting wrongly.

If you have done this and checked that you genuinely are getting only 2 hrs (ie let the MBA run until it shuts off, not rely on the gauge) then there is something wrong and you will need to get it fixed. I have a new MBA 13" only a couple of weeks older than yours and I'm getting 7-9 hours of real world use from the battery. It replaced an MBA Rev A which still gives me 5-6 hours of use with a two-year old heavily used battery. 2 hours is not normal unless you have lots of things running the CPU which you said isn't the case.

Best of luck! When it's right, you will be amazed at the battery life.

I have about 1 wheek old MBA 2.13 256gb 4gb ram . I get btw 6:30 and upto 10 hrs if only doing light webbrowsing. Still i´m running programs like Excel, ok you see what Im running from this pict.

On this pict with all my apps running in background (PS, Excel, Activity Mon, Mactracker, Address book ) I get estimate of about 8 hours and coconut timer is showing 6.5 watts.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55033696@N02/5619841226/in/photostream

My pleasureto be of any help. Going to work now , will be back tomorrow morning ( about 9hrs ) Just let me know if there is anything I can do. We could compare ,like activity monitor ,,,,

There is somth wrong with your setup .

Hey guys...

I'm running same HW, get typically 6-7 hours out of mine (unless I'm doing a lot of video watching). Mine is usually light work: web browsing, email (using Outlook 2011 and Office 2011). Right now just running those two - system is pulling anywhere between 8w and 16w using Coconut 2.7. With just the browser running (Chrome), pulls between 6-8w.

I keep my backlight at 50% most all the time.

Mine is now 22 weeks old (purchased late Nov), 62 battery cycles later current capacity is still 6679. I haven't calibrated in a couple months so should do that. I do regularly cycle mine. I run pretty much exclusive on battery, then charge when it gets down to ~10%. The only time I run on a charge is when I'm watching a DVD or a lot of internet video for a long time.

If yours through all is this still only running 2-3 hours.... definitely have a problem.

Cheers!

Besides how thin, light and sexy this MBA is, how silent and cool it runs, I've been ecstatic with the battery life. With my previous heavy, loud, hot running Windows laptop, I was able to get an hour-MAX! With this MBA Apple says I should get about 7 hours. With the screen brightness set to around 50% and just some web browsing or light word processing, I'm seeing upwards of 8.5-10 hrs!! Coconut battery is stating my MBA is at the ripe old age of 26 weeks and I'm currently using 7.4 watt.

After about 15 minutes of web browsing today:


Charge Information:
Charge Remaining (mAh): 6610
Fully Charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 6643
Health Information:
Cycle Count: 44
Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes
Amperage (mA): -827
Voltage (mV): 8240

With only a runtime of 2 hours on a full charge, I'd definitely be making a Genius Bar appointment at my local Apple Store to get it looked at that's for sure...

Sly

Agreed. Likewise for me...I'm sitting here with my Windows laptop also (this being penned on my MBA). The only real reason I maintain a Windows laptop is I have to support them at work. But my MBA is my real savior at home.

Hands down the best laptop I've ever owned: not JUST the battery, but weight, responsiveness, quick on/off and fastest sleep/awake from sleep in the business.

I'd definitely be taking the MBA in to an Apple Authorized repair or Apple Store if possible. I'm lucky enough to have 2 repair shops in town (no Apple Store), so at least I've got that.

Best of luck...

Cheers!

Keep in mind you will never get 7 hours doing iPhoto image import. The 7 hours is for browsing the web. Doing photo importing is very CPU intensive and will dramatically lower the battery time. Getting 3 hours while doing photo import sounds about right. I don't think there is anything wrong with your hardware. Try using it just for web browsing, email, and other light tasks and I think you will see a huge difference.