10.2 Battery Life?

aquatic

Anyone with a laptop (iBook 500 here) and 10.1 knows OS X isn't great for batteries in laptops, since none of the OS 9 Energy Saver options are implemented, for example. (I like to control my computer, thank you)



I was wondering if battery life while sleeping and in use has improved? I literally watched OS X eat my iBook battery from full charge to nothing, at 2% a minute, NO KIDDING. :eek: I wasn't doing anything stupid like burning a CD, in fact I was doing next to nothing. And this problem is magnified when you consider how much waiting you do in OS X on an iBook. So anyone out there with 10.2 on an iBook see a battery life or Energy Saver improvement? Thanks.



[ 08-22-2002: Message edited by: Aquatik ]</p>

kecksy

It's wierd how some people complain about poor battery life in OS X. I own a 550MHz TiBook, and it gets around 3-3.5 hours surfing the web and using Word. Running 10.1.5. Can play an entire DVD too, and I let it sleep for days. What's up?



[ 08-22-2002: Message edited by: Son of Pismo ]</p>

applenut

same here. battery life is quite good on my Powerbook G4/667



does eat the battery quicker in sleep than 9 but it also wakes up instantly. a trade off that some are willing to accept and others aren't

gardenofearthlydelights

That's a good question. I'm interested, as I use my iBook 600 as my primary machine.



I can get 2-3 hours on 10.1.5 surfing with Airport and listening to iTunes. I'm pretty happy with that, although more is always better.

ddma

For those 10.1.x users, go to System Preferences &gt; Energy &gt; Advance



Disable the feature that "Enable machine to wake up by Network Administrator", sorry, I am on a public machine running Windows, I don't exactly remember how the wording should be read.. You will have a much better battery life as well as OS 9 while sleeping.

fobie

I have about 3h of battery life on my iBook 600 (8MB VRAM). As far as I know the 10.2 Energy Saver Preference Pane is similar to the one in OS9.



That should help us with portable computers a bit. Well, ust two more days of waiting now.

dartblazer

i get around 3 1/2 hours of battery time. surfing the web over airport, running itunes at the same time. one thing that will give you a good amount more of battery life is to turn down the brightness on the screen.

warpd

The best news for laptop owners is that with 10.2, is that all the old OS9 options to set different settings for AC and battery usage are back. I am quite happy with battery life on my 700mhz iBook. I would say about 3-3.5 hours on average, with "normal" usage. It drops significantly if I fire into Photoshop, and so on. Also, performance is GREAT on this book (I do have 640 RAM) but I am really happy with is, and it is my only machine.



[ 08-22-2002: Message edited by: warpd ]</p>

thereubster

My Pismo G3/400 gets (at a rough guess) about 20% more battery life in 10.2 than it did in 10.1.5. The battery isnt holding the charge as well as it used to but I can still watch the entire Lord of the rings DVD 2hours 50 mins plus do other stuff on one charge whereas in 10.1 it managed about 2 hours or so.

aquatic

No one with an iBook has weighed in. No doubt X's eye candy taxes the G3. Also, 2-3 hours of battey life is NOT what Apple advertises That's fine, for a Wintel POS, not an Apple.



It is good to hear Advanced Energy Saver options are back. Applenut you are right, OS X wakes up much faster than 9, but the incredible battery suck isn't worth it IMO. There must be a way to avoid that trade-off?

kesh

I have an iBook 12" and I tend to get about 2 hours of use out of 10.1.5 when doing 'normal' workloads.



I will have Jaguar installed tomorrow night, and will try to get a post on here regarding the difference in battery life on Saturday.

kecksy

[quote]Originally posted by Aquatik:

<strong>No one with an iBook has weighed in. No doubt X's eye candy taxes the G3. Also, 2-3 hours of battey life is NOT what Apple advertises That's fine, for a Wintel POS, not an Apple.



It is good to hear Advanced Energy Saver options are back. Applenut you are right, OS X wakes up much faster than 9, but the incredible battery suck isn't worth it IMO. There must be a way to avoid that trade-off?</strong><hr></blockquote>



A bunch of people claimed 3-3.5 hour battery life with their iBooks. Read more carefully.

escher

[quote]Originally posted by dartblazer:

<strong>one thing that will give you a good amount more of battery life is to turn down the brightness on the screen.</strong><hr></blockquote>



[b]dartblazerp/b] hits the nail right on the head. I am running an iBook/500. With the screen brightness down to two or three bars, I can get nearly four hours taking notes in class. I don't let my HDD spin down either. Leaving screen brightness all the way up, battery life decreases by almost half, to a solid two hours.



I was lucky enough to get Jaguar from Apple today (Thursday). I still can't believe it. In any case, I am delighted to see the complete Energy Saver control panel return. Now I can finally enable processor cycling (reduced clock speed) when I'm running my iBook on battery. Hopefully this will improve battery life quite a bit. I have four classes on Monday, so I'll have real life results in a few days.



Escher

aquatic

Thanks for that tip. 4 hours is close enough anyway, and btw when my dad's Winbook screen is on maximum it's dimmer than my iBook's lowest setting. Hehe.

bkmaggert

Boy, I'm not impressed with you guys' battery life. My TiBook 550 gets about 5 hours on a charge reading the net in the evening with the screen brightness way down (OS 10.1.5). Turning brightness to full does reduce battery life by about half. 2 1/2 hours at full brightness or 5 hours at minimum seems damn good to me. Is there a Windoze machine that can do this?

kecksy

[quote]Originally posted by BKMaggert:

<strong>Boy, I'm not impressed with you guys' battery life. My TiBook 550 gets about 5 hours on a charge reading the net in the evening with the screen brightness way down (OS 10.1.5). Turning brightness to full does reduce battery life by about half. 2 1/2 hours at full brightness or 5 hours at minimum seems damn good to me. Is there a Windoze machine that can do this?</strong><hr></blockquote>



Only sub-notebooks with Transmeta processors or a 500MHz super low power PIII.

aquatic

Any more input would be welcome Please include:

-What system were you using?

-What were you doing?

-What were your Energy Saver settings?

zo

MacOS X 10.1 to 10.1.5

iBook 600MHz 14inch

Brightness turned down to next to lowest notch



I get 5 and a bit hours while listening to iTunes 100% of time, reading/writing word files and some net browsing.



I would say thats pretty damn good.



Sorry, but havent had the opportunity to try out 10.2 and battery life yet. All I know is that I cant complain much

kecksy

My 14" iBook in 10.2 has insane battery life. 10.2's power saving options allowed me to get close to the advertised 6 hours. Finally OS X has engery saving features on par with OS 9. No complaints here.

viking

I get about 4 hours of battery life with normal usage on my 667DVI Powerbook. I also don't keep my screen set to the brightest level, so maybe that helps a litlle.

kesh

Okay, got Jaguar running on my iBook, and I spent this evening on battery power. I see no real difference in battery life, but I was doing rather intensive work (reimporing my email to Mail) and haven't changed my brightness.