Macbook Air 13 4Gb and battery life

I also have the same problem. I have a 2 week old Macbook Air 13' and found the battery life to be horrible.

I read about battery calibration (which is something I've never heard of before), but I understand this to be unecessary for the new Macbook range as they are pre-calibrated, and it's basically just a visual guide.

I have found the batter to last about 3-4 hours and I ONLY use Safari for surfing Facebook, ocassionally playing music, and using regular websites. I run no intensive applications in the background or in the taskbar, with most turned off. I don't even use YouTube or play much video.

Apple needs to know about this, but I really do not believe the measures suggested here are addressing the real problem which is simply a poor battery

I too will chime in here with awful battery life (July 2011 i7 13"). We have an October 2011 13" and that I am pretty confident that it has 7 hour (or very near 7) battery life but not the new one. I can almost watch the battery percent number click down while I am just light surfing the web. With the old one, I wondered most of the time if the battery meter was stuck as it would seem to run for hours before hitting 90%. And coconut is showing 9 watts when surfing the web. If I was inside the 14 day window, I would return this and get a refurbished 2010 model in a heartbeat.

Hi DenysK

I too am having problems with battery life im only getting around 4 hours with just some light web browsing. Ive only had the laptop 5 days and am highly disappointed, especially after reading some of you are getting 8 to 10 hours doing the same things. Did any of you solve the issue? I am considering ringing up apple and seeing if they will replace it or at least do something about it.

Air 2011, i7. Web surfing with Safari (Flashblock ON) and reading a PDF book, no background music or other stuff, and when the battery is full it tells me between 3h:30m and 4h. Screen is about half luminosity. Turning the screen to an unreadable 20-30% (outdoors) will get the battery estimate to about 3h.

Pretty far from the advertised 6-7h, unfortunately.

Coconut gives me a max capacity which is larger than the designed one (6721-6729), and there are only 7 cycles done on the battery. Power usage stays above 9.5 watts and usually it is around 10.3w.

Is this normal behaviour? I doubt. Will it get better with a few more charge cycles? Will see.

I am not gonna do any calibration, as Apple advises against such thing on a brand new Mac Air.

That sounded about right for my i7. I finally sent it back for the i5 as this is what the so called 7 hour battery life was spec'd for. I have not had time to fully test my i5 but it does appear last longer than the i7 that I sent back.

But I think that Apple is being pretty optimistic with the 7 hour battery claim.

msprygada wrote:

But I think that Apple is being pretty optimistic with the 7 hour battery claim.

No, it's really possible. I have a late 2010 MBA 13 running OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard with the 128GB SSD and 2GB RAM and I'm getting an average of 7-10 hours of battery life. I always have Flash disabled.

Battery life can drop to as few as 3-5 hours watching YouTube or importing/exporting photos and video. Overall it's been amazing...

The newer i5 and i7 Airs running Lion do get less tho...

Sly

If you read my post a few posts back, you will see that I agree with you as my gal has a 2010 MBA that I am pretty certain gets 7 hours of runtime on battery. What I am talking about is that Apple released the new MBA (which I waited and then bought an i7) and did not change any of the runtime specs and still claim 7 hours of battery life.

I called Apple 2 times regarding this and on the second time Apple agreed to allow me to exchange the i7 for an i5 even though I was more than 14 days out as this is the machine they claim will run 7 hours not the i7.

I have not done any hard core testing but the i5 I have now does seem to run longer but will have to pay attention to just how long.

One of the reasons I bought this was its size, that is it instant on, and that it runs for a long time and if it does not, then I don't think that I am really interested in a small machine that last 3 or 4 hours. I would rather just use my Levovo laptop that while is larger, will run for 5 hours whether you lightly surf the web or run it hard with videos and is a much faster machine that the MBA.

But if this i5 will run 6 hours, I would be happy.

Do not let people tell you that you have a problem or this is not what the macbook air is supposed to do.

I have had the same experience as you mention in the your original post and 2 hours is fairly optimistic.

I just bought a brand new updated 13″ Macbook Air 2 weeks ago. It was a brand-new clean install of Lion.

I am dumbfounded at how horriblble my battery life is, and how bad Apple support has been at explaining this. Of course,there is just plain no explanation possible for the bad design decisions in this device, or what is really worse is Apple’s false and misleading marketing on it.

I followed most of the suggestions here on my own such as:
1. setting screen brightness to minimum.
2. setting screensaver off and screen blanking to practically minimal values.
3. turning the keyboard backlighting to the minimum and setting minimal timeouts on that as well.
4. Turning sound down
5. Even going so far as to shutoff the wireless when I was not using it.

None of these seems to make any difference when I really need the machine or what to use it.

Here is my test and what I notice:

1. With all the above settings in place …
2. I watched several 3 of Star Trek: Enterprise back to back on my Air. An episode without starting and ending credits is less than 35 minutes long.
3. After 3 episodes or about 90 minutes of play … certainly less than 2 hours or 120 minutes my Air was completely dead, no power at all.

While I was doing this the battery estimate percentage/time numbers seemed to be changing non-linearly. That seems to indicate that the program that looks at the battery drain is tweaked to be … let’s say “optimistic” giving me a false idea of how much battery is left – beause if what I am doing is a linear drain on the battery why is the calculations non-linear and programmed to be wrong, but then update in the next iteration/calculation to a much lower number?

I took my Air to the Apple store for diagnostics, and they passed and said my Air and its battery were in good health. They ran diags.

Then they told me that this was normal behavior … blaming it on Flash, or in the case of NetFlix blaming it on Silverlight. The new information was a bit hard to process right there on the spot. I mentioned that my iPad can go for a very long time watching NetFlix in the NetFlix app and not go dead – so I suspect this is baloney or something they have been told to say when confronted with battery complaints.

I don’t know what to think … I am thinking of returning the Air, but I do not want to buy a non-Apple laptop, nor do I know if buying a regular MacBook will be any better. I am really unsatisfied with Apples design of the MacBook Air in terms of the battery, and their support as well.

So ... my question is, do I keep the Macbook Air or return it and trade it in for a 13" Macbook Pro ... I do not really want to buy a NON-Apple laptop, but this is not workable. A minimum of 100 minutes battery life from watching streaming video is pretty pathetic.

I really thing they could have made the case just a little bigger and fit a decent battery into this device ... and as I mentioned I do not have this problem with my iPad 1.

Let me just chime in and add my two cents, FWIW -- I have a brand new MBA 13" i5, and I get around 6 1/2 hours out of the battery doing just about anything (surfing, watching video, a lot of heavy processing in terms of animation creation). It's still early days (I've charged it three times now) so I can't say definitively, but it seems plenty good enough for me (then again, it's not my primary computer by far, so I could understand if folks were disappointed using it for long periods each day).

What does impress me is how fast it charges -- while my iPad lasts longer (about 10 hours, on average) it takes twice as long to charge (four hours or more to get to 100%, while the MBA only needs two hours). That to me is fine but again, I'm not traveling or carrying about the MBA much (it's strictly home use).

I guess what I should do is some sort of test to be sure (although I think a streaming video test is pretty unrealistic -- why anyone would watch streaming video on a laptop is a little beyond me -- if you are that hooked up you have much better alternatives, and if you aren't you can just play movies directly from the drive or an SD card).

MIKE > I have a brand new MBA 13" i5, and I get around 6 1/2 hours out of the battery doing just about anything (surfing, watching video, a lot of heavy processing in terms of animation creation).

Mike, I can't prove you are a PR person for Apple here, so then - how would you account for the fact that according to Apple support we have the exact same machine - with drastic differences in performance?

It seems funny that someone would come right in immediately after I post a big problem with what is being called a perfectly healthy MB Air, with a counter review that is dismissing real people's experiences with a glowing positive review so out of touch with reality I find it unlikely.

If you think about what our different motivations for lying might be it is very unlikely I would come hear to lie about my experience last night at the Palo Alto CA Apple store and likely that since you posted this so fast right after my post that you are trying to do Apple damage control. But all I can so is express what I think my perceptions are about how it looks.

MIKE > although I think a streaming video test is pretty unrealistic

You seem to be trying to undermine my post with a kind of roll your eyes comment on "streaming video" - so can you explain clearly why you seem to think streaming video is of a different nature to all other applications?

I don't think there should be anything I can operate this machine, (that does not involve powering an external device or extravagent energy practices), that should be able to get me less than 2 hours battery life - PERIOD! The whole MB Air is solid state.

It just happens that I am reading Steve Jobs' biography, and these kind of design and guerilla support tactics do not seem like something Steve would have liked ir approved.

LOL -- the idea of ME being a PR for Apple is pretty funny (I'm a LONG time PC user -- this is my first Mac, bought only because I liked the iPad so much I started to think Apple might know something about computers I didn't). The only reason I have so many posts is that I was using an iPod on Windows before Apple even knew you could do it (and thus the many many many problems users had were things I tried to help with. Believe it or not, there was a time Apple really hated us Windows users and did not want us to even buy an iPod).

I think streaming video is a rather bad idea only because, as I said, the circumstances are such that it doesn't make sense. You'd have to have a wi-fi connection, right? The MBA is really designed for portability, and while I'd like to think wi-fi is everywhere the fact of the matter is that unless you live in a large city it's really not. With a home setup playing video on a computer is kind of dumb, IMHO, as there are far better displays (and comfort) to adapt. But that's just me -- I recognize not everyone feels the same way.

But I still don't know that we have completely different performance if we're comparing apples and oranges, so to speak. I haven't tried streaming video (although you post got me to looking at downloading the Netflix app and doing a test myself -- I'm a little busy with scanning stuff right now, on my MBA, so I don't know if I can test it tonight, but test I will). If you are saying that even just surfing or doing other things that don't involve heavy wi-fi use that would take more power still gives you only two hours or so then I don't know how to reconcile that with my experience unless we are just talking something like a "Monday" machine (the way my generation used to talk when we got a car that was a lemon and obviously built on a day that the workers just didn't want to be there. I don't know what the equivilent would be to Monday in China, though :>).

I mostly got this MBA so I could do animation work while I sit in bed with my wife watching television, and so far (as I said) I'm getting around 6+ hours out of it. But I will do a comprehensive test, as I said. My only thought in posting was just to present another piece of evidence, but you can make of that what you will (but, as I said, the thought of ME being an apologist for Apple is tres' amusing -- I've always thought folks who buy Macs are idiots. And now I'm one of them).

There are several million YouTube users who would disagree with your judgement of streaming video. I know many people who watch movies and series over streaming vid via wifi. Everyone is allowed to use their equipment how they see fit, an if Apple has claimed 7hours life, they've done dismally to meet that - particularly with the i7 - not sure how your i5 holds up. Anyway, the users experience is a valid one, I've had similar issues, particularly with the battery monitors innacuracy, and a max of about 3 hours of light browsing. It's quite poor and it means there are duds in batches if nothing else.

Sorry, but if folks are sitting watching two hours of YouTube videos I'd have to say something like "Get a life" (then again, that sort of person is *exactly* the kind of person I used to turn my nose up when I thought about Mac users. Perhaps that's just typical of Mac folk versus PC people -- I dunno).

I never said anyone's experience with battery was not valid, unlike someone said of mine. I was merely talking about what I experienced and I think it's a valid observation. But I am going to perform a more scientific test when I get a chance (I may even watch the Enterprise videos that poster was watching -- haven't seen Bakula in anything other than the Raymond series for quite some time).

Yah, sounds like you are in a difficult spot. Like you I would not be able to stand 100 minutes of battery life. My i5 is getting 4 to maybe 5 hours of light browsing. I noticed that when I run Parallels that the fan kicks into high gear and I probibly only get 3 to 4 hours of battery life. I only bought the MBA for the instant on and the small and thin size. If I had to go to a normal size laptop, I would buy another Lenovo like I have as there is no advantage for the MBP over my Lenovo for what I need. I still have Windows apps that I need and I would not have to buy Parallels to run those apps like I do with the MBA.

The only other thing to do would be to see if you can exchange it for a different MBA and hopefully it will get longer battery life than the one you have and the battery live is acceptable to you.

I am still dissapointed that my MBA only gets 4 to 5 hours but I guess after using it for a month or so I don't use it for that long in any one sitting and if I do I have just face the fact that I will have to plug in.

Good luck on your quest.

msprygada, thanks for the response. I have a friend with a macbook pro 13 ... not brand new, but he tried NetFlix tonight and got about 2.5 hours, not long enough for it to play all of "Apocalypse Now" which is 205 minutes. So the Macbook is signicantly better, which seems to me to be counter to what should be designed into solid state tablet/netbook sort of device with nothing else buy portability in mind battery life should be more like the iPad and not worse than a laptop.

Mike, I really think your whole thinking process is rationalied and biased in terms of your own usage - ie. is in line with what you want to see. That's fine, the product suits you personally, but it does not fit what the specifications should be of a device engineered to be a netbook ... I don't think you see the whole market, and especially not market trends of what people want. If people did not want streaming video they would not be buying iPads at all, nor would the iPad or whatever would have fit the market better have video on it, ie. cameras and the connection to the iTunes media store, and a the whole thrust or Apple's business model. You're entitled to think what you seem to me to be in a different universe. The idea of your getting 6.5 hours doing almost just what I am doing though you seem to claim that You-Tube is not streaming video - I don't get.

Just an aside, I was a young viewer of the original "Star Trek". I was happy to see but never much interested in the other series,but recently wanted to just see what Enterprise was like. I'm impressed that it is very good! By that I mean that in the 2 seasons I have watched so far there were maybe 5 shows that qualified as superb. Most of the other Star Treks I probably watched at all only because of the original series, and if the original series had not existed I am not really sure I ever would have watched them. Enterprise is good and stands on its own in the genre. Recommended - just not on my MacBook Air.

Onitsuka Tiger, if I take all the data points presented that I have pulled up "dud" might be probable. In that case Apple's support people and their diagnostics were either wrong or loaded to ignore the problem.

I have to decide do I ask Apple to replace the MacBook Air and/or its battery before I decide to fall back to a MacBook Pro 13". The other reason I got the Air was that the screen resolution was better comparatively. I really did not want to spend such an outrageous amount on this thing, and since I did I think it needs a better battery redesign is I can believe what I am reading elsewhere as well.

I'd like to see someone who had this same problem explain what they decided. Very disappointed in Apple on this.