Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

Looking forward to that spreadsheet. I wonder how many people have done clean installs?

After finding similar dismal battery life and general sluggishness, I did a clean reinstall of Lion. (Put Lion on a USB stick, booted from it, wiped the HDD clean with disk utility, then reinstalled Lion). I then used setup assistant (not migration assistant) from my Time Machine backup to recover apps and files.

FYI, I am on a 15" 2010 MBP 2.4GHZ i5 (dual core) with 8gb RAM, standard HDD

While I have no empirical evidence, anecdotally things feel better. In some cases, much better. Apps open more quickly (now in one bounce as opposed to 3-5 bounces). Graphical operations are more smooth (like using spaces, mission control, transitions between full screen apps and windowed apps, even that little window opening animation). Machine feels cooler off of battery. Battery drain also seems much more under control- its fluctuating right now between 5:30 and 6:50 remaining on a 92% charge after 2-3 hours of sleeping. This seems pretty reasonable to me and pretty close to my experience with Snow Leopard. 

While I am sure the recent updates (SMC and OpenGL) have had something to do with it, I feel very encouraged with the clean install.

I will keep posting to let you know if things stay this way, but I would recommend giving it a try. Took me about 3 hours total (with creating Lion USB stick, backing up, reinstalling, restoring apps/files, then updating and letting spotlight do its thing).

Poikkeus. Forgive my possible ignorance. When you say "the relevant firmware was applied..." what specific firmware are you refering to? My smc is 1.58f16, and efi is 1.9. These are considered up to date for my mid 2010 model, and were updated and applied well before my upgrade to lion. What firmeare does "10.6.8 Firmware" refer to?

I have had 2 call backs from Apple in the last 24 hours. 1 call from the executive office and the other from the escalation team that works with engineering. Both have nothing to report yet from all the data we've supplied.

I have let them know that we need information from them soon. People are wasting their time trying work-arounds that don't work and the genius bar cannot cope with coming up with zero diagnosis.

No information is bad information. Hopefully they will convince engineering to provide an update to us all SOON!

thanks Franc , that's good news ! this problem has lasted way too much time.

Right on, DooDoo!

Lets hope we get an update soon. I am not pleased to hear my MBP's fans running so much and so often.

If folks are submitting feedback via the Apple web site someone should be paying attention at Apple

battery backup in lion really horrible....i hav macbook white 2010...getting maximum of 4 to 5 hrs of battery on half brightness while web browsing ...but some time in idle condition it reaches up to 8 , 9,11, ...15 hrs....and again if i use some application it reaches to low level of 5hr, 6hr.....i think apple cant resolve it....!! they hav to upgrade their machines....

sl is best ....i had come back to sl now....it gives 7.5 hrs of battery backup on half of the brightness....

Hello everyone,

here is what I've found after playing a bit with dual boot (Lion 10.7.2 and SL 10.6.7). I don't want to go much into details about settings except that both OS had Sophos AV, gmail notify and WiFi on. I didn't start any application during this test, screen and keyboard light were identical.

Snow Leopard 10.6.7

I started with SL and first estimated time was about 2.20 on 67% but soon after time jumped to over 4:40. I just opened preferences to change OS for next boot and activity monitor and there was nothing out of ordinary. For sometime I just left computer with no apps open and occasionally moving mouse to prevent screen go dim and time was still over 4 hours. Awesome, that was better than any of my PCs with 100% of charge.

Lion 10.7.2

I can't say that I didn't start this with a hope, I really like Lion! Initially it was the same as SL, 2:15 on 66%. I was waiting about 30 sec to see is the estimate time go up and soon estimate reading was on 3:40   So far so good. I opened activity monitor to check is there anything thirsty on CPU but it was pretty calm. At this stage my estimate time dropped to 1:40. Closed everything, left my mac for about 30-40 sec with no apps open just moving mouse and estimate time went back 2:10 but soon after I was going to change boot OS in preferences and time went under 2 hours again! I've seen this many times before with Lion, all fine until you start real work!

I have no doubt that Lion has a massive issues with power consumption and that there is serious task ahead of Apple team. The above described was not a real test therefore don't take it too seriously. I was curious to see was there any difference (always optimistic) since I switched back to SL.

Even now when I'm writing this about 30-40 minutes later with 3 tabs open in Chrome, SL estimated time shows 4:15 (58%) and I like what I see but I like Lion too

C'mon Cupertion, over time, weekends, spend some of your $400 billion on this issue.

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Hardware: MPB 13" 2011, SSD, 8GB RAM.

DrChandra,

I'm thinking about partitioning my MBPro5,4 to run SL and Lion so I won't have to abandon a couple of applications that will not be upgraded to run on Lion. Do you have any advice on pros and cons of doing this? I have Intel core 2 duo, 4 GB of memory. Aside from the OS software, I don't need much memory in the SL partition. Will this fly?

I don't see any discussion about partitioning in other forums, but if you know of a resource I'll be glad to look there.

Thanks.

Quite a few people recommended partitioning or keeping extra drives in the 175 page-plus forum, "Does Anyone Recommend Lion?"

There are now two major groups of Mac users, as demonstrated by developers offering apps in two configurations:  SL and Lion.

This is a good thing, as each gets what it wants.  In the future, when Apple generates a new OS, it will want to regularly create an iOS version and a Computing version, in the same way that for several years it generated PPC, Intel, and Universal versions of past OSs and applications.  One size does not fit all.  One type of interface does not fit all.

That's the whole point of the digital revolution that Apple, at least for awhile, championed.  If it sells its soul to enforce conformity, that's when I'm finding another supplier, maybe (ironically) one from China, that communist paradise.  At least there you have choice.  

C'mon, Apple, honor your loyal users!  We don't need "One ring to rule them all."  We need diversity, options, opportunity.  And batteries that stay charged.

I'm not sure if this question has been posted before. I mentioned earlier that I just added two new MBP's earlier this week, both with decreased battery life.

"Are there any new macbook pro's that do not suffer from significantly reduced battery life?"

If no, wouldn't Apple have tested this before releasing Lion or new MBP's? And if they knew about it, isn't the advertising of battery life misleading? Sure, you can get away with saying 7 and getting 4 in real life. But if a new OS reduces life by a significant percentage, and you're still claiming the same battery life...

@alainca1: If you have a chance, ready SJ biography (by Walter Isaacson) and you may get the answer would they or not! SJ and his team were aware of the antenna issue with iPhone4 (before official release) but decided to ignore and give priority to design! Rest of the story was well know to all of us.

alainca1 wrote:

 

I'm not sure if this question has been posted before. I mentioned earlier that I just added two new MBP's earlier this week, both with decreased battery life.

 

"Are there any new macbook pro's that do not suffer from significantly reduced battery life?"

 

If no, wouldn't Apple have tested this before releasing Lion or new MBP's? And if they knew about it, isn't the advertising of battery life misleading? Sure, you can get away with saying 7 and getting 4 in real life. But if a new OS reduces life by a significant percentage, and you're still claiming the same battery life...

KABaker,

I'd always recommend Lion as long as you you don't worry much about battery performance, frequent charging and slight temperature rise. Personally can't stand cables and frequent charge and that's the main reason for me being on SL. I put Lion as a second for test purpose, didn't have real need for two OS.

If you have a need to run "SL Only" applications sounds like a good reason to go with both OS (Lion and SL) plus battery life.

When it comes to manipulation with partitions there are many good sources on the Internet, I don't have any to recommend but I have a small advice: measure twice, cut once

Cheers

kabaker wrote:

 

DrChandra,

 

I'm thinking about partitioning my MBPro5,4 to run SL and Lion so I won't have to abandon a couple of applications that will not be upgraded to run on Lion. Do you have any advice on pros and cons of doing this? I have Intel core 2 duo, 4 GB of memory. Aside from the OS software, I don't need much memory in the SL partition. Will this fly?

 

I don't see any discussion about partitioning in other forums, but if you know of a resource I'll be glad to look there.

 

Thanks.

Same issue here.  Not satified with battery life.  Either fix the problem or stop advertising 7 hours.......

I have just bought a brand new MacBook Pro 2.2GHz core i7 with 8 GB ram etc. I immediately transferred my files from my previous computer which had Snow Leopard. I have 2 days old computer and apparently my battery life is 2:30 when it is 100% full. I am using the same programs as before and even with less programs running, the battery is unacceptably low. I am hoping a fix soon about that.