iBook battery and Airport

She wants a notebook, and while we can get Dell or whatever, it seems that the iBooks have vastly better battery life.
Will Hartung wrote on :

I'm thinking of picking up an iBook for my wife. She wants a notebook, and while we can get Dell or whatever, it seems that the iBooks have vastly better battery life.

She also may be going back to school soon, so the battery seems like a better deal there as well.

Since I expect her to mostly use it for light duty surfing and WP over wireless (at least at the house, dunno about school), I was curious how the Airport eats the battery. Can the iBook be in a miserly power mode and still play music? Will the music player cache enough to let the hard drive spin down? I plan on maxing out the memory (any suggested sources for memory?). That would let her listen to music while studying at school.

We're pretty much a Windows house, but bang for the buck, a 12" iBook seems like a pretty good deal, and I don't think there's much to compare on the PC side, particularly with battery life. But throw in Apple Care and local Apple Stores, and it seems like a slam dunk to me.

Thanx!

Regards,

Will Hartung (willh@redacted.invalid)

Jospeph replied on :

Will Hartung willh@redacted.invalid wrote:

I'm thinking of picking up an iBook for my wife. She wants a notebook, and while we can get Dell or whatever, it seems that the iBooks have vastly better battery life.

She also may be going back to school soon, so the battery seems like a better deal there as well.

Since I expect her to mostly use it for light duty surfing and WP over wireless (at least at the house, dunno about school), I was curious how the Airport eats the battery. Can the iBook be in a miserly power mode and still play music? Will the music player cache enough to let the hard drive spin down? I plan on maxing out the memory (any suggested sources for memory?). That would let her listen to music while studying at school.

We're pretty much a Windows house, but bang for the buck, a 12" iBook seems like a pretty good deal, and I don't think there's much to compare on the PC side, particularly with battery life. But throw in Apple Care and local Apple Stores, and it seems like a slam dunk to me.

I own an iBook G3 500. IIRC Apple claims the battery lasts up to 5 hours. But I found I get about 2.5 hours to a charge. I don't find the display very useful when using anything less than the brightest setting in normal lighting. I don't typically disable the Airport card. Others have claimed getting 3 or 3.5 hours to a charge, probably by devotedly cutting back system functions like the brightness, not using the DVD drive, or not using the airport card.

I also own a Dell D800. I get just under 4 hours to a charge using the Dell with little to no mobile tweaking.

Peter Renzland replied on :

In article c1o6c0$1lor6q$1@redacted.invalid, Will Hartung wrote:

I'm thinking of picking up an iBook for my wife. She wants a notebook, and while we can get Dell or whatever, it seems that the iBooks have vastly better battery life.

She also may be going back to school soon, so the battery seems like a better deal there as well.

Since I expect her to mostly use it for light duty surfing and WP over wireless (at least at the house, dunno about school), I was curious how the Airport eats the battery. Can the iBook be in a miserly power mode and still play music? Will the music player cache enough to let the hard drive spin down? I plan on maxing out the memory (any suggested sources for memory?). That would let her listen to music while studying at school.

We're pretty much a Windows house, but bang for the buck, a 12" iBook seems like a pretty good deal, and I don't think there's much to compare on the PC side, particularly with battery life. But throw in Apple Care and local Apple Stores, and it seems like a slam dunk to me.

Thanx!

Regards,

Will Hartung (willh@redacted.invalid)

My iBook (dual, 500, 384) with 2,5 year old battery at 3.078 capacity ...

doing mail and web over airport (in my bathtub) ...

.7 - .75 mA which means over 5 hours on a new (4Ah) battery. iTunes at max undistorted volume makes this go to 850mA. does disk spin down? no. could it? sure. probably will some day:-) after all music is only 1.5 MB/min, and I've got plenty MB's.

(Panther does not spin down as readily as Jaguar, but I expect that it will, later.)

anyways, disk takes less than 10% typical load. same for disk. speaker takes a bit. airport about 10%. display takes a lot. I always run display at 1/16 when on battery.

here are recent logs:

mmdd hh:mm:ss Voltage Load Charge Kapacity % time Flags [+VLCKF] 0229 18:42:38 12.050 V 1.077 A 3.050 / 3.078 Ah 99.1% 2:49 04 F 0229 18:42:38 FLAGS: -> unplugged 0229 18:42:44 12.050 V 1.077 A 3.050 / 3.078 Ah 99.1% 2:49 04 ... 0229 20:12:44 11.161 V 0.837 A 1.905 / 3.078 Ah 61.9% 2:16 04 0229 20:13:44 11.195 V 0.832 A 1.892 / 3.078 Ah 61.5% 2:16 04 0229 20:14:44 11.201 V 0.821 A 1.879 / 3.078 Ah 61.0% 2:17 04 0229 20:15:45 11.195 V 0.804 A 1.867 / 3.078 Ah 60.7% 2:19 04 (stopped iTunes) 0229 20:16:45 11.195 V 0.782 A 1.856 / 3.078 Ah 60.3% 2:22 04 0229 20:17:46 11.195 V 0.763 A 1.842 / 3.078 Ah 59.8% 2:24 04 0229 20:18:46 11.188 V 0.741 A 1.831 / 3.078 Ah 59.5% 2:28 04

so, as you can see, it has been running since 18:42, and will go until 22:50, on a battery that's lost 25% capacity.

maybe others will post equally quantitative records?

-- peter

Will Hartung replied on :

"Peter Renzland" phr0206@redacted.invalid wrote in message news:_iw0c.331$JZ6.68369@redacted.invalid

In article c1o6c0$1lor6q$1@redacted.invalid, Will Hartung wrote:

My iBook (dual, 500, 384) with 2,5 year old battery at 3.078 capacity ...

doing mail and web over airport (in my bathtub) ...

That seems "Brave" to me...

here are recent logs:

mmdd hh:mm:ss Voltage Load Charge Kapacity % time Flags [+VLCKF] 0229 18:42:38 12.050 V 1.077 A 3.050 / 3.078 Ah 99.1% 2:49 04 F 0229 18:42:38 FLAGS: -> unplugged 0229 18:42:44 12.050 V 1.077 A 3.050 / 3.078 Ah 99.1% 2:49 04

Interesting. How do you get this log?

Thanx!

Regards,

Will Hartung (willh@redacted.invalid)

Peter Renzland replied on :

(willh@redacted.invalid) Will Hartung wrote:

"Peter Renzland" wrote

My iBook (dual, 500, 384) with 2,5 year old battery at 3.078 capacity ... doing mail and web over airport (in my bathtub) ... That seems "Brave" to me...

It would be with wires for power and network, but not with airport and a 5h battery. And a computer that is as small as a book and that can be closed and re-opened just like a book. Oh, in case you're wondering, I don't rest it on my lap! :-) :-)

here are recent logs:

mmdd hh:mm:ss Voltage Load Charge Kapacity % time Flags [+VLCKF] 0229 18:42:38 12.050 V 1.077 A 3.050 / 3.078 Ah 99.1% 2:49 04 F 0229 18:42:38 FLAGS: -> unplugged 0229 18:42:44 12.050 V 1.077 A 3.050 / 3.078 Ah 99.1% 2:49 04

Interesting. How do you get this log?

I wrote it. Useful if you use Unix. www.renzland.org/batmon There's a pretty program XBattery that you may find preferable.

I see you got a good deal on an iBook. Congrats.

-- Peter