Q: Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

A poll at Engadget shows that over 7400 of nearly 17,500 respondents who've installed Mountain Lion (42 percent) say they've noticed a definite and discernible drop in battery life. A similar poll at RazorianFly suggests that the 2011 models are disproportionately affected, but that may be sample bias.

http://www.tuaw.com/2012/08/05/mountain-lion-bugs-chopped-battery-life-and-nonse nsical-save-a/

Interesting... I'm glad Apple are all over this now.

Just to add my name to the list:

"Bought a 13" Air with Lion installed, and when fully charged, and nothing running (just the finder, airport etc. "off") it reported 6 hours 45 minutes remaining.

After upgrading to Mountain, in exactly the same condition, it's reporting 4 hours 30 minutes remaining.

Although all the power saving tips will help, it does seem that there's something going on with ML that is reducing battery life by about 30%."

Glad Apple are on the case....

same problem

Me too. Reeder, Evernote, Tweetbot, Sparrow now stick with integrated Intel graphic video.

has anyone successfully downgraded to lion and had their battery life restored to what it was?  i'm considering this, as i'd much rather have battery life than new "features" that really don't change the way i use my computer for the better

Yes! I did a zero wipe of the drive, reinstalled Lion from a disc and my battery life is back to normal. 6+ hours when not doing much. It was 3 or less on Mountain Lion.

I'm enjoying Lion so much right now I might not move to Mountain Lion for months.

Having those apps running on Intel graphics is what should give you better life in ML than Lion once this bug is figured out.

(Again, I'm one of the lucky ones seeing better battery life in ML than Lion, getting 6+ hours on my mid-2010 MacBook Pro with 1063 cycles on my battery.)

One thing I've noticed: a lot of people have done clean installs, and a lot of people ran the beta before installing the final release. Is it possible either of those scenarios is contributing to the problem?

I haven't done a clean install of OS X since 10.0... my 10.8 is an update to 10.7 which was an update to 10.6 which was an update to 10.5 which was migrated from my Powerbook G4... and so on back to 10.0. I've also never ran any of the betas (well, except for the very first OS X beta, but that doesn't count, I started from scratch after that.)

Although I'm sure a lot of people here having problems did an upgrade just like me, so probably no correlation.... man, at this point, I feel like I won the lottery!

In my case (which is the typical ~50% decrease in battery life), it wasn't either of those cases.

I did a "normal" upgrade of Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion (on my 13" mid 2009 MBP) only after it was launched on the App Store, without having every installed a beta on it.

The part about graphics switching is also a non-issue for me, since my model doesn't support it.

I'm thinking of doing a clean install though, since I'm getting a new SSD in a few days anyway and I might as well try it (even though some people have reported trying it without success...).

Same problem here.

MacBook Pro 13 inches, mid-2010.

Moutain Lion 10.8 (12A269).

Battery Health : 90%

With Lion, battery life : 7~8h.

With Moutain Lion : 4~5h.

Clean install, no update.

I always have to bring my power adapter at school now. Not really funny.

I am having the same issues with battery life, too. I have a MacBook Air, 11-inch, Mid 2011. I did an upgrade. It seem that the battery only last half as long as it did when running 10.7.

Same Problem with my MBP!

MBP 17", early 2008

2,5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

OS X 10.8 (12A269)

Battery life with Lion: 3-4h

With ML: 1-2h

Same here.... early 2011 MacBook Pro 15" i7 8GB RAM and NO clean install.... Mac is getting hot after 1 hour of normal work.... no gaming final cut or photoshop and so on...

I`ve checked the running processes..... nothing strange...... but I try to take a closer look....

I have a  Core i5 MBA, since i installed Mountain Lion my Battery Life get dramatic drecrease... Its Horrible  from Fully Charge went to 80% en 10 minutes!!!... and keeps going incredible fast!.. What Can i Do?

Just wanted to let you guys know. 15 inch early 2008 MBP with Samsung SSD and 4GB of RAM. Just purchased compeletely new Apple original battery (had it recharged 4 times), my old one had over 400 cycles on it. After upgrading from Lion to ML and buying a new battery, I don't feel that I have much improvement in battery life. After spending 30 min. reading this forum it's down to 1:51 min (started as 3:54). IMO, a brand new battery should not loose its charge this quickly. So, I assume I also have this problem

Just got back from my Appointment at the Apple Genuis Bar and they installed a new battery on my 2011 MBP.  The battery had definitely degraded after the ML install.

Now I can get a fair shake to see how the battery lasts now (taking any defective battery out of the equation).  Will keep this thread updated.

Diana