Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

Same problem here. Macbook Pro 13" (bought in 2009). On SL my battery was running 7 hours, now it's down to 3 hours. 90 minutes of surfing the internet with Safari (no Youtube, just browsing messageboards etc...) use up 40% of battery time.

I too had the battery life shortened at first, went from 7 hours to 3 on a Macbook Pro 13' 4GB, 320GB purchased in July of 2011, it had been that way for a week.  I decided to let the battery drain completely then recharge and battery life started out at 10 hours been on my computer for 2 hours now and battery life is now at 8 hours.  If I play games requiring flash of course that would drain the battery faster, but can tell a difference after draining it and then recharging it without using it overnight.  I personally am enjoying Lion and when the upgrades start rolling in it can only get better. Of coure this is my first Mac and only had SL for a few days before the upgrade, but no problems as of yet.  Fingers crossed

I called apple support today, and the guy said that they havent heard of this battery life problem

That's what I would expect to them to say.

My solution was to drag the whole Mac HD drive to the Privacy panel in Spotlight Preferences. Battery now is back to the 6-7 hour range up from 3 - 3.5. I think Apple have to re-think the Spotlight indexing. First, it is a pig that makes your disc drive go crazy, the processing go mad and the fans spin like a jet ready for take-off. Second, get rid of the indexing when running on battery. There is no need for it and it absolutely kills the battery charge.

Your mileage may vary.

MacBook 13" C2D

When it was new I had almost 4 hours on battery. The day before I installed Lion it was still around 3 hours.

Since Lion it is 1:40 at 99% charge. (2:10 at 100%, how can that be?)

That's just enough to carrry it from one plug to the next. That's another issue I hope they'll fix soon.

I think I've found a partial explanation.  Many (most?) of the Macbook Pros released since 2008 have contained both integrated and descrete graphics cards.  Older models required manual switching in the Energy Saver preferences, and newer ones switch automatically depending on the application in use.

It seems that Lion isn't currently switching between video cards at all, using the descrete card 100% of the time - resulting in a hotter computer and massive battery drain.  The solution is to install a program that allows you to switch between them manually.

Here's the Blog I found describing this.

Here's the Application to manually control graphics card switching.

I'm sure Apple will release an update that fixes this, but this seems to be a good workaround for now.

Good Luck!

I have a Mid 2010 MacBook Pro, graphics switching works fine if there are no programs requiring the discrete card.  Sometimes I am amazed that certain programs require it (official Twitter app).

Guess it won't work for everyone then ... That application, gfxCardStatus, wasn't showing any graphics card switching happening for me, ever.

Click the gfxcardstatus icon in your menu bar, you will see a list of apps that are requiring the discreete card when it's in use.  Quit those apps and it should switch if set to dynamically switch.

Thanks for the help... it worked exactly as you described.  Okay, I once again have little to no clue why I'm getting less battery life in Lion (using the same applications).  Time will tell.  Thanks again LandonAB.

Because it's a .0 release and bugs happen.  I would expect a bug fix release in the next couple of weeks, hopefully this will be one of the issues fixed.

I was having the same problem. Battery life drained quickly and cpu was high up with fan running and device getting hot.

Solved the problem!!!!!!!!!!

If you're using file vault, the old system, disable it and activate the new lion file vault. My device is now running smoothly as ever.

I just want to say. Lion is not the best OS in the world, Snow Leopard is it. Using Lion the battery life is a SHAME! Yesteday i had to back to Snow Leopard and my battery comes back to normality. Just saying.

Lion is not the best OS in the world, Snow Leopard is it.

Just go back to Snow Leopard, as many do.