Only six hours of battery life on my 2013 MacBook Air 13"

was actually doing this battery experiment on the new MBA 2013 when web berowsing = reading article news as long as i dont play any video clips or youtube my battery meter stays at 10hrs or 12 hrs and 10 mins as soon as a play video and HD true web battery meter drop dramatically to 6 hrs 100% charge. playing via itunes 3rd party application player such a vlc player gives me a total of 14hrs time to watch but if i put a in a external hard drive battery drops to 8-10 hrs still depends on how you use your macbook air. playing movie is superb but trought web browser and mostly if you already installed alot of plug in expect your battery experience will be arround 6-8 max.

Don't ever look at the battery meter, it's totally random. This is the problem here - most of people say how is their battery by looking at it. That's why we have such a misinformation here.

Also from the Research i've done the i7 upgrade drops the total battery time by up to an hour too..

If this is a new system and you've migrated from an old one, spotlight indexing may run for the first few days. Make sure that indexing is finished before assessing your battery life situation. Clicking the spotlight magnifying glass will tell you if indexing is happening.

I have a one week old MBA 13" i7 500 GB and 8MB RAM. When I unplug fully charged the battery indicates 100% and 5:30 hours battery time left. But ten minutes later it has recalculated and at 99% indicates 11:34 hours. So it seems it takes a while for it to calculate correct time. Now at 98% it reports 11:54 remaining.

I bought a MBA 13 i5 250GB and 4GB RAM, not entirely what I wanted but being based in Thailand at the moment, I would have had to wait for 3 weeks for an i7 with 8GB RAM to come from Singapore. Given that my old one had just died, I had to bite the bullet. I figured I would change when back in the UK.

Upon un-boxing , the battery showing 100% quoted 12 hours, impressive I thought, BUT lets wait and see.

I immediately starting installing all the usual apps and was still very impressed. Battery seemed to be as good as the claims. I figured that I couldnt really tell yet as no doubt it was getting extra usage from installing and indexing.

Day 2

Used the MBA at work all day, emails, Internet, PDF's etc, lasted approx 8 hours. Not so good as day 1

Day 3

100% charged overnight, much the same as day 1, in addition viewed some clips on YouTube, battery died after 7 hours.

Day 4

Watched a movie in VLC, surfed the Internet, wrote some word docs, emails, downloaded files-total approx 3GB, again approx 7 hours battery.

Day 5

Same menial tasks as above, battery died not long ago, again 7-8 hours.

Now bear in mind I am running an i5, no heavy apps running, checked Activity Monitor daily, no indexing going on.

I am not getting the battery life that I expected, or that I bought the MBA for.

Obviously I will keep monitoring the situation, if it doesn't change I feel it will be going back to the Apple store.The battery indicator certainly appears to be of very little use, other than to make you feel both pleased and then disappointed.

CraftyCockney, you confirmed what I was thinking. The battery issue is not related with i5/i7 difference at all. There is a small advantage on battery life with i5, but come on - CPU doesn't consume large part of battery during standard usage. Nobody gets 10-12 hours of battery with new Mac Book Air with WiFi turned on - this is a fact. Apple measured battery life under some unreasonable circumstances and they should pay for that. They could have said: "Hey, our battery lasts for 30 days!" while thinking about sleeping MacBook. That wouldn't be much less of a lie.

Just thought I'd post an update on my battery life. So for a little recap: I have a 1.7 i7, 8gb memory, 500gb storage, 11-inch macbook air. When I first got the computer in the mail, it was lasting 7-6 hours on a full charge while doing minimal tasks (browsing the internet). I called Apple and they sent me a new one, which had the exact same problem.

I discovered a strange occurance a few weeks ago. If I let the computer charge up completely and leave it on the charger for a few hours after it turns green, then restart it, then unplug it, the battery meter says I have about 15 hours of battery life. And what's odd is that this battery meter estimate is actually relatively accurate, the computer will last about 13 hours and the battery will drain very slowly. However, if I let the comptuer go to sleep, the battery goes right back to draining very quickly when I wake it up. Obviously I can't constantly keep my computer awake all the time while I'm going about my day or traveling, so I am stuck with the 6 hours battery life that I get without that little trick.

I've started to wonder if the battery problem is some sort of software problem that the 1.7 i7's are having. Anyway, that's just my two cents. For other people getting 6 hours of battery, try the trick I mentioned above. Let the computer charge up completely and leave it on the charger for a few hours after it turns green, then restart it, then unplug it and report back about how quickly your battery drains. I'm interested if this works for other people.

This is what the monitor shows when I do the trick, the monitor will say 15 hours of battery life, and I get around 13 hours of real time comptuer usage.

I too have noticed that it seems to be much worse after being awaken from sleep mode.

Right now at an indicated 50% battery, it is telling me that I only have 1:48 remaining.

Whilst I know, as many have said, this cannot be trusted, it should at least be somewhat indicative.

I don't think this is in relation just to the i7's either, as mine is an i5. it has the same strange behavior. It could be a software problem when switching in and out of sleep mode. maybe Mavericks will be the answer. Not sure I will be waiting that long though as the 14 day period will be long before that release.

I will try your trick of leaving it on charge after the light goes green, but as you say, this is relatively impossible to live and work in this situation. Like many others, the reasons I bought the MBA were for the battery and portability. It appears that the battery may well give the longevity if we do not close them, so much for portability.

I think we need to first ascertain just exactly how Apple come to these figures they quote, that way at least we can compare like for like.

Apple just reached out to me by phone asking for system information to help determine a cause and determine if this is an issue.

I hope to see results in the near future. I appreciate Apple's concern over this matter.

Which concern do you appreciate? You will not get anything from their "concern" 😉 They are either playing surprised about your issue or they (help center) really don't know. I doubt the latter one though - we can see here that it's not even an issue, it's just what MBA 2013 is.

I apprecaite that they are reading through the forum and calling people that are noticing a problem. That shows concern. I didn't say they were going to fix it.

Well I have tried what you suggested noname14, however it didnt seem to change too much on my MBA.

I am certainly not even seeing an indicated time of 12 hours, the only time I have seen this was when I first turned on the MBA after purchase.

@Kyle531, yes its good that Apple are at least reading the threads, what they will do about it remains to be seen.

I think I will be getting in touch with them to try and extend my 14 days to 30 days.

I suspect that Apple have received numerous calls on the matter and hopefully will address the issue.

My main gripe is that I feel we have been led up the garden path somewhat with the times quoted. Its a bit like buying a car with an advertised top speed of 220mph, only to find that this is only achievable downhill, tail wind and off a cliff!

Had I known what I have since found out, I more than likely would have purchased the MBP.😕

when getting 7-8hrs what was brightness setting? For the wifi workload Apple states brightness is at 12 clicks. At full brightness (16 clicks) batterylife will drop like 3hrs doing the same thing vs 12 clicks. Granted 9hr isn't what you are getting, but the box is real sensitive to the backlight setting.

I did the math. Apple says the battery is 50Wh. If they claim 12hr, then 'thier claimed average workload is ~ 50wh/12hr = ~4.2W.

I also checked the system profiler with the machine idle at 12 clicks and then idle at 16(max). The power section shows battery voltage and current. I found the difference between 12 and 16 clicks is about 1.5W.

So @ 16 clicks the new average power just by increasing backlight would be about 4.2W + 1.5W = 5.7W.

50wh / 5.7W = 8.8hr ; that's over 3hr different just due to backlight!

So each backlight click between 12 and max would eat about 45 minutes of Apple's workload.

Apple used to claim batterylfie at 50% which is pretty dim , so on the good news front they seem to be shooting for a workload at a more reasonable backlight , even if the browsing workload seems too light for people's taste.

hope this 'shed some light' on why people may be experiencing vast differences. Doesn't mean we like it - but math doesn't lie

Your math does not have any cover in reality. I'm getting pretty much the same battery life whether on 12 or 14 clicks. People, please stop giving wrong information basing on the math and/or battery indicator. Just test your battery!