Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

Apple - Batteries - Notebooks

Children - STOP. There is a major BATTERY LIFE drain/loss problem for MANY people with LION for;

New Machines with LION pre-installed

Upgrades to LION from Snow Leopard

Many people have seen some improvement with the following 2 work-arounds ;

Downgrade to Snow Leopard

Running GFXcardStatus program and switch to integrated only (not discrete).

The fact both of these work-arounds make some significant improvements back up clearly that it's a firmware/software bug that can be addressed.

Apple engineers have contacted me (6 times) and others on this forum. They are aware. I think they are struggling to find a fix but they wouldn't be working on solultions if it wasn't a problem. This started for me with an email to Tim Cooks office and his exec team responding so they too are aware.

After 5 months of this problem and a 30 year computer / software veteran, I am getting very frustrated - I've tried everything. I've been a MAC laptop person for 4 years now.  What annoys me is the lack of public acknowledgement.

Most people would never notice the problem since 3 1/2 hours for many is more than OK. It seems to be, those that rely on 7+ hours of battery life (like me who flies long haul) are shouting the loudest. People that didn't care (my wife doesn't even "notice" it much, although her smaller macbook is experiencing 1/2 battery life.

There is NO denying this is a major issue for MANY, inconvience for MANY more and "who gives a crap" for a LOT more.

Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop's Battery Life

CT, most people on this thread have tried everything. These are often 101 battery life saving things that have been around for 10+ years. Considering what we are seeing is half battery life on the same hardware, same settings and same software / usage or better hardware for those that purchased brand-new machines, these ways to extend battery life add little value.

Thanks anyway.

Bob, Mulligans: I counted 4 responses from each of you in the last day, plus more from the previous day that set this all off.

Can we please agree to only post at most twice per day? I've consistently found that an overnight pause tends to cool down flame wars.

As far as I can tell, there is no scientific survey of people's battery life on either side, just a significant number of voiced complaints with no idea of (A) Apple's actual priority of this compared to other issues, and (B) Actual percentage of owners affected.

All we know is: Some unknown percentage/numbers are affected, and recent iOS/siri issues have had bigger priorities/were resolved first.

Please someone tell me how to make these messages stop.  I have not interest in listening to people argue about thier opinions on Mac quality - that is not the purpose of this thread.

I came here for support with my battery issue.  EWW thank you for offering advise however, my problem is unresolve.  Today is day 14 thus I will return my MBP and try another one.  If what I have read is correct and this is a rare problem then it will be fixed. 

No I am not a tech savy person - I'm only a medical student trying to use my computer looking for help.

The reason you're getting these posts is because you posted a response; you can unsubscribe yourself for this discussion or even forums in general.

I admit that there isn't much new information in this thread. But the issue hasn't been resolved - primarily because even experienced users may not realize what a problem it is. Most MBP users rely on their MagSafe cable for power, and may not even be aware of Lion's battery issue. But if you rely on the battery, especially after Lion, 2 - 5 hours of battery life is well under Apple's promises. It's kind of sad that you've opted to return your 2011 MBP - for the reasons mentioned here.

You might consider getting a 2010 MBP on refurb; CNET claims a battery life of 387 minutes.

If I was happy with staying plugged in I would buy a imac.  I'll try another MBP.  I've had electronics that failed in the first two weeks never get better only to continue to return them until the 3 year warrenty ran out.

I sent an email Christmas eve and yesterday I received a call and response from Apple Executive suite.  Very friendly lady who took the details She, herself , is not an engineer, could not speak to the issue. When I stressed the numerous entries on his thread alone and that 185,000 hits on this thread are recorded she promised to pass this along to proper channels.

Clearly this is not a problem limited to only a handful  nor limited only to persons using older computers.Seems limited to laptops. Maybe not an issue to all laptop users but that is difficult to asertain as there many laptop users who "schlep" their MBP with them but always plug them in when using , nomatter where they are. Such person would not know  they have a problem

Common Apple, you need to fix this problem.

I just want to add my voice to this growing discussion.  I am having the same problems.  After upgrading to Lion on a 3 month old MacBook Pro I went from seeing 6 hours battery life to less than 2.  I could use to be able to get at least 5 doing heaving photo editing and other nominally intensive things, but now just simple web-browsing at 50% brightness reduces the battery to nothing.  I reset everything that could possibly be reset and reinstalled Lion.  Both to no avail.  I went to the Geniuses twice with this issue and each time was told nothing was wrong.  Please Apple, Please, fix this issue!

I have been lurking for a few weeks hoping for a solution but wanted to chime in here if I may..

Poikkeus wrote:

 

I admit that there isn't much new information in this thread. But the issue hasn't been resolved - primarily because even experienced users may not realize what a problem it is. Most MBP users rely on their MagSafe cable for power, and may not even be aware of Lion's battery issue. But if you rely on the battery, especially after Lion, 2 - 5 hours of battery life is well under Apple's promises. It's kind of sad that you've opted to return your 2011 MBP - for the reasons mentioned here.

 

You might consider getting a 2010 MBP on refurb; CNET claims a battery life of 387 minutes.

I'm running a glossy mid 2010 MBP 15, upgraded to 8GB of RAM. I have done all the resets, have been running gfxCardStatus since Snow Leopard, upgraded to Lion, then clean installed to Lion and I have the same 2.5 - 3 hour symptoms everyone else is having here.. I used to get 6 hours with more intensive usage including large photoshop sessions and lightroom editing. Sounds familiar no? I have been toying with the idea of going back to SN but I like Lion too much to give it up just yet, mainly for the four finger desktop space switching.

Just wanted to add my .02 cents..

Also, off topic, when I upgraded to Lion it broke the auto switching in gfxCardStatus. When I contacted Cody Krieger, the developer, he let me know that he had been hired to work for Apple. Hopefully we will someday soon see his hard work added to OSX. Just an interesting note.

Thanks everyone for keeping this thread going strong. I have to imagine this issue is being addressed at least a boy can dream.

-Paul

Very good point, and I hope that Apple engineers take notice and develop a useful solution.

I have an iMac, use a power cable with my MBP '09, and wasn't even aware of the battery issue until some at this forum opened my eyes. The subset of users who rely on their battery is substantial, but comparatively small. That may be why so many people at Genius Bar claim they haven't encountered the problem.

CNET's estimate of 2010 battery life is, apparently, based on the method used by Apple - display at half-strength, MacSafe disconnected, with Safari on. I urge you to document your performance so that owners of 2011 and 2010 MBPs can confront Apple with hard numbers - which could give us better performance down the line.

At the same time, I think the main issue for most users is that they've noticed a difference between battery life on SL vs Lion. It seems Apple has to make progress on this, as well.

I have a fairly new machine, MBP 8,2 and noticed the battery drop after the 10.7.2 update.  Nothing has chaged since that update hardware wise and I do notice the machine is quite a bit hotter.  Other than the obvious drain when using flash, which I try to not use, but hard to avoid.  I installed SMCFanControl to help cool things down.  Seems a bit silly that this is even an issue, but it is making me concerned.  It's probably related to the flash player using the hardware excelleration.  Whould be nice if there was a alternative.

I don't know if Flash is implicated in any battery/heat issues, but you can minimize or eliminate the problem by installing the free ClickToFlash and ClickToPlugin - which keeps Flash animations from loading. Since the vast majority of Flash is ad-related, this can speed your browsing. GFXCardStatus, also free, allows you to vary your graphics processor to be more efficient. You already use SMCFanControl.

Hopefully, Apple will release an update to at least partially address this problem.