Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

i enjoyed a 9 hour battery yesterda and now am back to 6.5 hours again ;(

Unfortunately I can confirm that resetting the SMC on my MacBook Pro (Mid-2010) only gave me a ‘normal’ reading for a couple minutes after turning my Mac on.

Now it seems like it’s still draining way faster, just like before. I normally got 6-7 hours on Snow Leopard but now it’s down to around 4 on Lion. I guess I can only hope an update is on the way.

Same here!!

2.8 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo

8 GB Memory and 750 GB HD

Battery is less than half of the use before.

I have the same problem. battery life cut from 9 hrs to 3 hrs!!

Right, precisely the same as mine.

Nine hours down to three.

Usefull to useless.

For whatever it's worth, I sure hope you folks are also voicing these concerns directly to Apple at via OS X Feedback page:  http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

Same here, my battery life is cut to half....

So, did the Genius Bar prove helpful? Did you manage to squeeze any more life out of your battery?

Seeing the same thing on a Mid 2010 15" MacBook Pro.  No processes are out of control, just reduced battery time remaining.  Rarely is it over 3 hours even when idle.  Prior to Lion, would hit around 7+ hours when idle.

Landon

Same thing is happening on my mid-2010 13" MacBook Pro.  I watched one TV episode on Netflix last night and drained 70% of my battery.  Last week I was getting 7 hours easy.  Hopefullly Apple comes out with a patch soon!

same thing is happening here too, i want to go back to Snow Leopard, but i don't have my cd's who came with my MBP... anyone knows a way to go back?? i don't even have a time Capsule Backup...

thanks for your help....

Hi Omolina,

Without the install disc and/or a backup of your system, you're in a bit of a pickle.

I fully share your frustration with Lion, especially in terms of the loss of battery-life. But can you hold tight for just a bit longer? Before going through the chore of an OS downgrade, perhaps it would make sense to wait and see how (if at all) Apple will address our problem.

Thank You,

you are right... maybe i should wait for the solution... is just that my battery had only 20 cycles used... and with snow leopard was using 1 cycle for 2 days for example... now with Lion i'm using 2 cycles per Day... 

i just hope that the solution comes really soon...!

thanks CreativeSmith!!

I too am hoping for a speedy resolution.

Meanwhile, am noticing that the remaining time displayed for my battery is highly erratic.

This evening, in a matter of minutes, it has gone from 9+ hours to 3+ to 6:09. I realize that the display is only an approximation, and that the number is greatly impacted by [specifically] what we are doing with these machines. Using Flash Player, for example, ***** the life out of the battery. But I've never seen it go from one extreme to another in such a short span of time.

I changed mine to display as a % rather than as time remaining.  It's not as frustrating.  I am wondering if it's a calculation error rather than an actual decreased battery life.

It's definitely not a simple displaying wrong problem.  In 39 minutes my 2010 15" MBP has dropped 29% while working in Safari and Coda.  Mail is idle, Twitter is idle.  Screen brightness is at about 48%.

Seems like a huge drop.