Late 2011 Macbook Pro, battery life better with lion or snow leopard?

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Level 1

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Late 2011 Macbook Pro, battery life better with lion or snow leopard?

Hi peoples,

would like to hear from people who originally got their late 2011 macs with lion and have downgraded to snow leopard, how has this affected your batter life? any other people who have downgraded to snow leopard, please give input as well. I currently have the late 2011 macbook pro, have never used snow leopard, but have heard many good things about it and want to see if downgrading would be better for me. Dont worry about commenting on app compatibility etc, i would just specifically like to know about battery life.

Thanks in advance,

Vic

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.5), 17" 2011

Posted on Oct 17, 2012 2:20 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 17, 2012 2:41 AM in response to Vic-zx

I've a late 2011 15" MBp which shipped with Lion and I don't even think that it's possible (I might be wrong) to 'downgrade' to Snow Leopard on my machine - unless I run it under a VM app.

I've no problem with battery life - none with Lion and none with Mountain Lion.

I just don't think that you can run SL on a late 2011 - a number of early 2011 shipped with SL and I know that they can, but I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong...

Clinton

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Answer 2

Vic-zx Author

Level 1

5 points

Oct 17, 2012 5:08 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham

See this link

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1275346

my mac is similar to his and he seems to manage it.

I have no problem with battery life either, however you say no problem with mountain lion, tell me if you have upgraded from lion to ML has the battery life changed? many people are saying they have less battery life as ML takes more memory and processes.

My battery life right now is very good, using gfxcardstatus I sometimes get 8-9 hours when im at the library (mainly reading and typing) and of course a bit less life with wireless. I just dont like that my system sometimes slows down, and I have a display problem with samsung external monitors which I think will be fixed if i reinstall lion and or install SL.

Vic

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Answer 3

Oct 18, 2012 2:43 AM in response to Vic-zx

Sorry to be so long in answering - I was otherwise occupied!

I read the link - seems as if it can be done - saw this link as well - about installing SL on a 'new' Mac..

You can only give it a shot - not much to lose, I suppose. The SL retail disc is only available from Apple by calling 1-800-MYAPPLE.

Let me know how it turns out.

Clinton

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Answer 4

sig

Level 8

35,862 points

Oct 18, 2012 10:47 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham

A retail disk will not work. It comes with 10.6.3. The early 2011 macs shipped with 10.6.7. So only a machine specific disk with 10.6.7 will work. If you read the link that's what the fellow used. That said anyone who let's you borrow their disk to install SL puts you and them in a software license violation.

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Answer 5

ds store

Level 7

30,725 points

Oct 18, 2012 11:06 AM in response to Vic-zx

Battery life is much better on 10.6 than the Lions here on my Early 2011 17"

Vic-zx wrote:

I just dont like that my system sometimes slows down, and I have a display problem with samsung external monitors which I think will be fixed if i reinstall lion and or install SL.

How to revert your Mac to Snow Leopard

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Answer 6

Courcoul

Level 6

18,558 points

Oct 18, 2012 11:43 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham

clintonfrombirmingham wrote:

I just don't think that you can run SL on a late 2011 - a number of early 2011 shipped with SL and I know that they can, but I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong...

About half of the Early 2011 Macs used SL. Lion was released to market on July 20, 2011, after which all were eligible to use it. The problem is INSTALLING SL, as previously installed SL volumes at the 10.6.8 level will happily boot and run on Late 2011 MBP's. If you have access to an Early 2011 or Mid 2010 MBP, a spare external drive and a SL install DVD, you can do a base OS install on the drive, upgrade with the Combo updater to 10.6.8, boot from that on a Late 2011 MBP, reapply the Combo patch as well as any other security patch, then use that volume as a Golden Master for futher Snow Leopard deployment on Late 2011 Macs. Might also work on 2012 non-Retinas, just don't have one handy to test.

As an interesting trivia, when I received my Late 2011 MBP in December, it would even boot from the 10.5.8 Leopard Macintosh HD volume from my dead Early 2008 MBP. Then came a firmware update around the beginning of this year and it lost its capability to boot Leopard. But SL still works fine.

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