My 11" MacbookAir's battery is used up after using 3 hours 14 minutes, is it a normal status for the brand new Macbook air?

You might want to take it in. You should be getting at least five hours, that is standard. HOWEVER, before you take it in, check on a variety of things that could be affecting battery life. Like your settings (how long does the computer go on with no activity before going to sleep?), brightness, etc. Also, we don't know what you're doing on Safari. If you're watching a lot of videos and movies, that could affect the time.

Nevertheless, from my experience and what I've read from other users on their experiences, the 11" Air has a very good battery life even when doing heavy lifting. Three hours seems very short if you're not doing a lot on it. So if there seems to be no extenuating circumstances that would shorten the battery time, I would take it back to the store. Unlike laptops in the past, this is not a case of the company saying it gets five hours but it really only gets three. The 11" Air really does and can get five hours normally.

Besides running cool, fast and quiet, battery life is one of the star features of the latest generation MacBook Air. My 13" MBA gets over 7 hours. Get it checked...

Sly

Quite, right, Sly! The Air battery life is one of it's best features. There have been times when I've opened up my fully-charged 11" and it's told me that I have six hours! 😮 It usually didn't stay at six hours, but I was amazed to even see the computer tell me that the computer could go that long on a charge. And I've found that my 11" really holds true to it's five hours even when I've got plenty of programs going, unlike my last laptop which sometime promised four hours but never made it past three if I was doing several things on it.

I'm just glad to be rid of the old days when you'd ask "How do I get three hours?" and someone would give you this list of things required to achieve that--like maximize the energy saver, dim the screen to almost black and run only one program at a time 😁

I suppose you could say I have/had the same problem.

My battery life on my 11" MBA is similar to your situation. I fully expected that the technician would find nothing wrong, as battery life varies. A perfectly functionaing battery can yeild quite different run-time expectancy, depending on the nature of the use of the device.

Some of the reposnders here have been using their experience with a 13" MBA, which has a much longer run-time, due to its higher battery capacity versus load ratio. "The 11-inch MacBook Air has a battery that lasts up to 5 hours, and the 13-inch model lasts up to 7 hours", according to Apple's battery testing protocol. The operative words in that description is "up to".

Maybe I am coming on a bit strong here, but this is what I have found after owning 3 MPP's and one MBA, is that battery charge longevity is wholly dependednt on how much load you put on the components by the nature of the use of that computer. By saying your manner of use is "Safari only", doesn't tell much. Safari itself doesn't use much in the way of resources, but the plug-ins and support applications it may use can easily add to the overall amperage draw by a factor of many times Safari alone. That in itself can mean the diffrence between 5 hours, and 3. The manner in which you use Safari, the way users here use Safari,and the manner in which Apple tests Safari for baatery longevity, is probably qite different. I doubt Apple even tests Safari with Flash, seeing how they dont't even include it anymore.

But hey, if Apple is willing to swap out the unit to give you peace of mind, and if it please you, then good for you! I hope that I am wrong about your situation, and all goes well.

BTW, I am greatly pleased with all my Macs, especially my MBA, which gets 5 hours battery when I use it lightly, and 3 hours quite often.

Forsythe, your description of "up to" is what I was discussing regarding the "bad old days." Battery life will of course flex and change depending on what one is doing. Five hours can turn to three if you're watching videos and/or heavily gaming or have a lot of programs open and running. No user can expect to get five hours each and every time.

BUT back when you had your 3 MPP's, the rule that Apple had was to give the most optimistic time on battery charge rather than the most realistic. This meant that if you wanted to get the promised 3-4 hours you had to do all kinds of things to get it--like turn up the energy saver, turn own the screen brightness, limit the number of programs you were running, etc. Then maybe you could eek out the maximum amount of hours from the battery.

But when the Airs were presented, the one thing emphasized was that the 5 hours/7 hours were realistic, not as they had been in the past, idealistic predictions. Meaning that a user running programs that didn't require that much heavy lifting could reasonably expect to get those five hours on the 11", not three because they hadn't adjusted the energy saver or turned down the brightness on the screen.

I have Safari, iPhoto, Pandora and a Scrivener running right now. My 11" Air says that my battery has 4.5 hours. As I've had my fully charged 11" open and not plugged in for about thirty minutes, that adds up to the full, promised, five hours. Not three You really should be getting more than three unless you're running programs that require a lot of power.

Just in case you are still having problems or would like to extend your battery life try and application called clicktoflash because flash can reduce your MBAs battery life by about a third.

Very true. That is the first application I downloaded-right after I downloaded Flash.

It works well...

Sly

I too have a 2011 MBA and the battery life *****. Often it doesn't fully charge even after being plugged in overnight. And then during regular use, basically using Safari and several other non-intensive apps, it drains very very quickly. Just made an Express Lane appointment for tomorrow AM - will see what they have to say about it.

Did you try clicktoflash? It involves turning off all flash in safari unless you click on it. Its a free app and it would extend your battery life quite a bit.

Option + click on the battery icon in the Menu bar to check on battery health. If the battery is normal, it's possible you are using more applications, or performing a CPU intensive task which could be draining the battery quickly.