I have been buying macs for some years now, but still i cannot believe why there is no data on the apple website about the life of the battery, after all, that is one of the MAJOR items of a notebook, no ?
I agree that battery life is generally important information, but I've generally had a hard time finding battery time information for any brand.
It is especially bad with the luggables or desknotes, no one will admit that they are sucky products, people think they are high performance but what they truly accel at is battery amps, and not in a good way.
I'm calibrating my battery right now. I've been heavily using my MBP for two hours now and I'm down to about 25 minutes left. Energy Saver is set to "Normal" for battery use, haven't let it sleep at all, LCD at almost max brightness, been compiling source with XCode and demoing it to people (running 5 or 6 apps at once). Only ethernet is enabled (no airport, no bluetooth). Oh, and it's a 2.0GHz MBP.
So it seems to be about 2.5 hours under fairly heavy use with no extra measures taken for battery savings (and this is the first battery use). I'm expecting it to last a bit longer after being conditioned. That's pretty comparable to other laptops out there.
I have been buying macs for some years now, but still i cannot believe why there is no data on the apple website about the life of the battery, after all, that is one of the MAJOR items of a notebook, no ?
Why dont they just say it like it is.. or is it becasue steve said..it's all about the power/watt ??
I have changed my order today to a 2.16cpu.. i guess my battery life will be ever lower!!
Not by much. Most of the power consumed is for other parts of the machine. The cpu consumes less than half the power, sometimes less than a quarter, depending on what you are doing.
I'm calibrating my battery right now. I've been heavily using my MBP for two hours now and I'm down to about 25 minutes left. Energy Saver is set to "Normal" for battery use, haven't let it sleep at all, LCD at almost max brightness, been compiling source with XCode and demoing it to people (running 5 or 6 apps at once). Only ethernet is enabled (no airport, no bluetooth). Oh, and it's a 2.0GHz MBP.
So it seems to be about 2.5 hours under fairly heavy use with no extra measures taken for battery savings (and this is the first battery use). I'm expecting it to last a bit longer after being conditioned. That's pretty comparable to other laptops out there.
From everything I've been reading, that sounds just about right.
Here's what I really want to know about the MacBook:
Can you right click?
I'm constantly reaching for ctrl/holding down on the trackpad button for a right click action. It doesn't bug me that much, but still, it'll be neat if they do with the trackpad as they did with mighty mouse in adding a (literally) seamless right-click.
Maybe we'll see this in second generation MacBooks.
I'm constantly reaching for ctrl/holding down on the trackpad button for a right click action. It doesn't bug me that much, but still, it'll be neat if they do with the trackpad as they did with mighty mouse in adding a (literally) seamless right-click.
Maybe we'll see this in second generation MacBooks.
I hope to see it too. Apple's site doesn't say anything about additional mouse buttons. I do like the trackpad scrolling system, but one mouse button is usually insufficient for me. I find that combining it with a keystroke is pretty awkward, I even use middle clicks too.
Forget about O'Grady, he's not worth trusting. No really, I mean it.
Proud new MacBook Pro owners are getting 2.5 H on a brand new battery, no battery-saving changes, battery not calibrated.. How's that not good? People with battery-saving changes on and a calibated battery will get upto 5.5+ H, I'll put down $100 on that! Now, start reading some "real world batterytests" and forget about O'Grady. Thanks.
Forget about O'Grady, he's not worth trusting. No really, I mean it.
Proud new MacBook Pro owners are getting 2.5 H on a brand new battery
Which is exactly what O'Grady's test came up with. What problem do you have exactly with his test, considering he came to the same conclusion as you (and many others who have posted online)?
i've tried to get it right several times, unsuccessfully of course...
edit: nevermind.
That was definitely mangled, but I can't say that the Tom's article was worth the effort. I don't know what it is with current hardware sites, but their sites are usually pretty laughably messy. I'm not flipping through 25 pages when only 20% of each page is the actual article and 40% of each page is damn site navigation. No magazine has a table of contents or index on every page, I don't understand why those goons think they need to depart from that.
Gee, sorry guys. It wasn't that tough when he first put it up.
He seems to be moving articles off his site to ZDnet's blogs.
I have never trusted his "rumors" because they have always been wrong. I've said that here before. But, as for his tests, and reporting, he's been pretty accurate over the years.
His battery tests merely confirm what everyone else has found.
The machine gets a bit over 2.5 hours of battery life when used normally. This is about the same as equivelant PC laptops with the same configuration.
That shouldn't be too surprising.
We are talking about a chip that has low power usage, but is two cores.
With this 1Ghz TiPB I could watch a full legnth DVD on one charge. That was a major selling point for me (although it can't do this anymore due to battery degradation).
I was in the market, but no longer. This is one of those deal-breaking features. If I can't play at least one full length DVD and/or XVID movie, the utility of the laptop nosedives.
Maybe Apple will get it right in the next revision, hopefully with FW800 (I mean WTF?).
With this 1Ghz TiPB I could watch a full legnth DVD on one charge. That was a major selling point for me (although it can't do this anymore due to battery degradation).
What do you consider to be the run time of a "full length" DVD? With some power management tricks, I would expect that the MBP should be able to easily play all but the very longest movies.
My only concern, when I get it, is how easy it will be to compile and install 'non-mainstream' applications. My first pursuit is to see how well DarwinPorts will work, and whether there will be an compilation issues. I would imagine, this would not be the case because they are simply source files that will be compiled natively, but I am unfamiliar with the intricacies of kernel level changes that have occured.
My only concern, when I get it, is how easy it will be to compile and install 'non-mainstream' applications. My first pursuit is to see how well DarwinPorts will work, and whether there will be an compilation issues.
Fink is always on the ball. They're always on the bleeding edge, and already have a preliminary Intel version:
I was wondering: Apple issued a warning about the magnetic field of the magsafe port, stating it is dangerous to leave your iPod etc. near it. But the left USB port is right next to it?! Wouldn't that mean that my USB stick is unsafe in the left USB port, risking damage of the flash disk?
I was wondering: Apple issued a warning about the magnetic field of the magsafe port, stating it is dangerous to leave your iPod etc. near it. But the left USB port is right next to it?! Wouldn't that mean that my USB stick is unsafe in the left USB port, risking damage of the flash disk?
Not necessarily.
Magnets can be designed to have a "contained " field. The field might extend in just a particular direction. Or, it might not extend beyond the connector.
I was wondering: Apple issued a warning about the magnetic field of the magsafe port, stating it is dangerous to leave your iPod etc. near it. But the left USB port is right next to it?! Wouldn't that mean that my USB stick is unsafe in the left USB port, risking damage of the flash disk?
Someone might have to hit me a cluestick, but assuming your USB stick doesn't have a hard disk inside, why would the solid-state memory be affected by a magnetic field?
Comments
Originally posted by sternone
I have been buying macs for some years now, but still i cannot believe why there is no data on the apple website about the life of the battery, after all, that is one of the MAJOR items of a notebook, no ?
I agree that battery life is generally important information, but I've generally had a hard time finding battery time information for any brand.
It is especially bad with the luggables or desknotes, no one will admit that they are sucky products, people think they are high performance but what they truly accel at is battery amps, and not in a good way.
So it seems to be about 2.5 hours under fairly heavy use with no extra measures taken for battery savings (and this is the first battery use). I'm expecting it to last a bit longer after being conditioned. That's pretty comparable to other laptops out there.
Originally posted by sternone
I have been buying macs for some years now, but still i cannot believe why there is no data on the apple website about the life of the battery, after all, that is one of the MAJOR items of a notebook, no ?
Why dont they just say it like it is.. or is it becasue steve said..it's all about the power/watt ??
I have changed my order today to a 2.16cpu.. i guess my battery life will be ever lower!!
Not by much. Most of the power consumed is for other parts of the machine. The cpu consumes less than half the power, sometimes less than a quarter, depending on what you are doing.
Originally posted by auxio
I'm calibrating my battery right now. I've been heavily using my MBP for two hours now and I'm down to about 25 minutes left. Energy Saver is set to "Normal" for battery use, haven't let it sleep at all, LCD at almost max brightness, been compiling source with XCode and demoing it to people (running 5 or 6 apps at once). Only ethernet is enabled (no airport, no bluetooth). Oh, and it's a 2.0GHz MBP.
So it seems to be about 2.5 hours under fairly heavy use with no extra measures taken for battery savings (and this is the first battery use). I'm expecting it to last a bit longer after being conditioned. That's pretty comparable to other laptops out there.
From everything I've been reading, that sounds just about right.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/...cker_response/
Can you right click?
I'm constantly reaching for ctrl/holding down on the trackpad button for a right click action. It doesn't bug me that much, but still, it'll be neat if they do with the trackpad as they did with mighty mouse in adding a (literally) seamless right-click.
Maybe we'll see this in second generation MacBooks.
Originally posted by jdbartlett
I'm constantly reaching for ctrl/holding down on the trackpad button for a right click action. It doesn't bug me that much, but still, it'll be neat if they do with the trackpad as they did with mighty mouse in adding a (literally) seamless right-click.
Maybe we'll see this in second generation MacBooks.
I hope to see it too. Apple's site doesn't say anything about additional mouse buttons. I do like the trackpad scrolling system, but one mouse button is usually insufficient for me. I find that combining it with a keystroke is pretty awkward, I even use middle clicks too.
Originally posted by melgross
O'Grady did some real world tests. Here is his article:
http://www.powerpage.org/archives/20...ks.html#008641
Forget about O'Grady, he's not worth trusting. No really, I mean it.
Proud new MacBook Pro owners are getting 2.5 H on a brand new battery, no battery-saving changes, battery not calibrated.. How's that not good? People with battery-saving changes on and a calibated battery will get upto 5.5+ H, I'll put down $100 on that! Now, start reading some "real world batterytests" and forget about O'Grady. Thanks.
- M4hl3r
Originally posted by M4hl3r
Forget about O'Grady, he's not worth trusting. No really, I mean it.
Proud new MacBook Pro owners are getting 2.5 H on a brand new battery
Which is exactly what O'Grady's test came up with. What problem do you have exactly with his test, considering he came to the same conclusion as you (and many others who have posted online)?
Originally posted by melgross
Here's another article about the Core Duo chips, performance, and battery life.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/...cker_response/
now that's a hard-to-link-to article.
i've tried to get it right several times, unsuccessfully of course...
edit: nevermind.
Originally posted by tubgirl
now that's a hard-to-link-to article.
i've tried to get it right several times, unsuccessfully of course...
edit: nevermind.
That was definitely mangled, but I can't say that the Tom's article was worth the effort. I don't know what it is with current hardware sites, but their sites are usually pretty laughably messy. I'm not flipping through 25 pages when only 20% of each page is the actual article and 40% of each page is damn site navigation. No magazine has a table of contents or index on every page, I don't understand why those goons think they need to depart from that.
He seems to be moving articles off his site to ZDnet's blogs.
I have never trusted his "rumors" because they have always been wrong. I've said that here before. But, as for his tests, and reporting, he's been pretty accurate over the years.
His battery tests merely confirm what everyone else has found.
The machine gets a bit over 2.5 hours of battery life when used normally. This is about the same as equivelant PC laptops with the same configuration.
That shouldn't be too surprising.
We are talking about a chip that has low power usage, but is two cores.
With this 1Ghz TiPB I could watch a full legnth DVD on one charge. That was a major selling point for me (although it can't do this anymore due to battery degradation).
I was in the market, but no longer. This is one of those deal-breaking features. If I can't play at least one full length DVD and/or XVID movie, the utility of the laptop nosedives.
Maybe Apple will get it right in the next revision, hopefully with FW800 (I mean WTF?).
Originally posted by strobe
With this 1Ghz TiPB I could watch a full legnth DVD on one charge. That was a major selling point for me (although it can't do this anymore due to battery degradation).
What do you consider to be the run time of a "full length" DVD? With some power management tricks, I would expect that the MBP should be able to easily play all but the very longest movies.
Originally posted by dewindj
My only concern, when I get it, is how easy it will be to compile and install 'non-mainstream' applications. My first pursuit is to see how well DarwinPorts will work, and whether there will be an compilation issues.
Fink is always on the ball. They're always on the bleeding edge, and already have a preliminary Intel version:
http://fink.sourceforge.net/
Originally posted by Setarcos
Wouldn't that mean that my USB stick is unsafe in the left USB port, risking damage of the flash disk?
Good point! I hadn't considered that!
Originally posted by Setarcos
I was wondering: Apple issued a warning about the magnetic field of the magsafe port, stating it is dangerous to leave your iPod etc. near it. But the left USB port is right next to it?! Wouldn't that mean that my USB stick is unsafe in the left USB port, risking damage of the flash disk?
Not necessarily.
Magnets can be designed to have a "contained " field. The field might extend in just a particular direction. Or, it might not extend beyond the connector.
Originally posted by Setarcos
I was wondering: Apple issued a warning about the magnetic field of the magsafe port, stating it is dangerous to leave your iPod etc. near it. But the left USB port is right next to it?! Wouldn't that mean that my USB stick is unsafe in the left USB port, risking damage of the flash disk?
Someone might have to hit me a cluestick, but assuming your USB stick doesn't have a hard disk inside, why would the solid-state memory be affected by a magnetic field?
[bracing]