battery life time of MacBook

what's the supposed life time of the new MacBook?
Martin Trautmann wrote on :

Hi all,

what's the supposed life time of the new MacBook?

It got an 80 Wh battery and a 85 W power brick - I suppose it's pretty hungry and will not last longer than two, max. three hours?

  • Martin
skay.solutions replied on :
I think that is less than powerbook. In the apple's web www.apple.com doesn't show any time battery. I suspect that is less. =A1=A1=A1Viva my 6 hours battery ibook!!!!
Martin Trautmann replied on :

On 11 Jan 2006 09:13:44 GMT, Martin Trautmann wrote:

It got an 80 Wh battery and a 85 W power brick - I suppose it's pretty hungry and will not last longer than two, max. three hours?

Correction: it's a 60 Wh battery. However, it's named as M9756 and linked to this replacement battery.

Actually, this is the 50 Wh battery from the PB G4 15".

I guess this mistake (?) will change 'til February.

CPU tests had shown that a single Yonah core takes about 20 Watt extra, while the full dual core operation takes 29 Watt extra for the 2160 MHz version. Max. spec is 31 W.

Maybe the MacBook could use the Core Duo L2400 LV instead? This would take 15 W only (at half the CPU price, $300 instead of $600 at 1660 MHz). The Dual Core T2300 takes the same 31 W :-(

Since the better MacBook got 1.83 GHz, this matches to the Core Duo T2400 only. I guess this excludes the low power L2400 for the smaller MacBook.

Price comparison for 1.66 GHz: T1300 (single core): $209, 27 W (EUR 230) T2300 (dual core): $294, 31 W (EUR 270) L2400 LV (dual c.): $316, 15 W
(US price: recommend by Intel, EURope street price)

  • the low power version should be a significant improvement.

Assuming that a typical display and other parts will take about 10 W on their own, assuming an average power consumption of 20 W this will be max. 3 hours.

Full operation might be below 1 1/2 hours?

Does anyone have realistic numbers about the battery consumption for other systems?

project:

I might take the battery plug from an old battery, connect this to an external power supply and check the drawn current via battery plug

  • in sleep mode
  • display off
  • display on, no program load
  • max. load

Same should be done via the plug from the power brick, with the additional variations of

  • battery almost empty
  • battery fully charged

(this would be 4 x 3 = 12 numbers).

Further variations:

  • WLAN on/off
  • BT on/off
  • external USB devices attached

If anyoned did some of those measurements before, please let me know - not for the MacBook, but for any other iBook/PowerBook or notebook.

A simple check would be the power consumption on the primary input of the power brick - but most 'energy meters' are not very good for measurements at around 50 W (or < 5 W standby) when they are dimensioned for up to 1600 W (a typical max. number in 230V/50Hz Europe).

Thanks, Martin

Martin Trautmann replied on :

On 11 Jan 2006 16:17:55 GMT, Martin Trautmann wrote:

However, it's named as M9756 and linked to this replacement battery.

Actually, this is the 50 Wh battery from the PB G4 15".

I guess this mistake (?) will change 'til February.

Later docs name the 60 Wh battery as MA348G/A