So how long does an apple laptop battery really last?
I've got a brand new battery that apple says is supposed to last 4.5 hours with small print that says of course that depends on use, with a link to preserving battery life which as far as i can tell basically says just don'y use it if you want decent performance - just go plug into the wall.
Right now, while i do have optimal battery use turned on, and the screen turned down low, and wireless off, i'm still not even seeing two hours available. What gives? Is sleep mode suddenly sucking the life out of my laptop, even with the airport /wireless turned off? Apple's note doesn't say.
So in what ideal universe does this battery get 4.5 hours usable time from it? in sleep mode? when the computer is on, but no applications are loaded, no internet activity is taking place and no typing is occurring?
A colleague has just informed me, looking at the spec for the 17" macbook pro (mbp), that while you can order a 7200 drive, the bottleneck of the processor won't let it actually access data at that speed - so its spin is just eating battery life compared to the 5400 which the MBP can actually use.
swell.
What kinda battery life are you getting from your macbook pro?
UPDATES:
Update 1: According to Apple's Discussion Forum, others are having similar problems with mpb battery life (while there's also those precious few who are getting just super duper times).
UPDATE 2: Since taking my macbook pro in to get repaired (it was burning up!) my battery life has somewhat improved, as the image on the left shows.
UPDATE 3: (Early Aug 06). Well shiver me timbers but it appears Apple's actually noticed that there's a REAL discrepancy between performance and spec on its 15" macbook pro batteries, and has initiated a worldwide exchange programme. Writes apple 
The affected batteries have model number A1175 and a 12-digit serial number that ends with U7SA, U7SB or U7SC. To view the model and serial numbers located on the bottom of the battery, you must remove the battery from the computer. The battery serial number is located above the barcode. Only batteries within the noted serial number ranges need to be exchanged.
I've ordered mine. Will be keen to see what the New and Improved performance will be.
Posted by mc at May 24, 2006 6:48 PM
I get around 3.5 hours out of my 15.4" Macbook Pro.
What laptop are you running that battery in?
[mabbook pro 2ghz -mc]
I'm also not sure the quote about 7200 vs 5400 is actually a true statement. Yes the processor and bus will be the bottleneck of how much data you can physically transfer off the disk at any one time. But the advantages of the increased RPM are in the reduced seek times and random access times, hence reducing the time it takes to find data across the disk and hence reducing the time it takes to transfer data (rather than actually transferring at a higher rate). I may be wrong on this, just my £0.02
I used my mbp recently on the train and managed 3.5 hours from it, maybe four - hours because the screen goes off when I'm thinking. I usually fill my mp3 player so I'm not using iTunes and try to restrict myself to text files and maybe some compilations with a little bit of drafting e-mails.