Standardized Battery Test Results for the MacBook Air
They setup 3 tasks of varying intensity with the MacBook Air's display set at just above 50% brightness, and not to go to sleep, though the hard drive was allowed to spin down if able. The tasks and battery life times are listed as follows:
1) Use Wifi to browse 20 pages in a loop, spending 20 seconds on each page, while playing MP3s in iTunes. 4hr 16min
2) Play a DVD image (off the internal hard drive) in a loop. 3hr 25min
3) Download 10GB of files, Web browsing loop from #1, play two 480p Xvid videos in a loop. 2hr 25min
As expected, the battery time varies greatly with use, and helps explain the discrepant battery life times seen by various users. Andantech summaries:
Apple's 5 hour claim is laughable but not as much as I expected. If I wanted to I suspect I could hit 5 hours by making the web browsing test less stressful, but my focus was on real world usage scenarios, not proving Apple correct. Regardless, 4 hours and 16 minutes doing what I consider to be the intended usage model of the Air is respectable. It's not great, but it's not terrible either.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)
The main factors I can see for battery life of a notebook computer is wifi access, disk read/write, and display brightness.
If you manage those three things efficiently you should be able to reach close to apples claim of 5 hours. Admittedly you would struggle to operate a computer like that day to day.
Apple under weights their ipod's battery life but over weights their laptop's battery life. :confused:
I'd like to see "Real World" testing and not just loops...
---Meh
Not sure how to take the tests,really. Does someone actually sit there and refresh a page every 20sec for over 4 hours? Never stopping to read an article? Never stopping to hit the can?
I'd like to see "Real World" testing and not just loops...
The point is these are standardized tests. We've had "real world" results reported... you want to know what those were?
2hrs 30mins
3hrs 45mins
5hrs 00mins
4hrs 15mins
2hrs 50mins
With reported use being described as "typical" for all of them.
I think the browsing,mp3 playing test is very indicative of use for many people.
arn
I was happy when my 12" PowerBook got me 5 hours, and that was with Wifi and bluetooth off, 1 bar of brightness and speakers off, doing little more than taking notes with Microsoft Word.
Sounds pretty darned good to me.
Steve said that other ultra portables generally get 1-2 hours of battery life... and here apple is pwning ANOTHER aspect.
I have a regular macbook, and with listening to music, web browsing, Instant messanging, and downloading, i only get about 3 and a half hours.
The point is these are standardized tests. We've had "real world" results reported... you want to know what those were?
2hrs 30mins
3hrs 45mins
5hrs 00mins
4hrs 15mins
2hrs 50mins
With user reported use being described as "typical" for all of them.
I think the browsing,mp3 playing test is very indicative of use for many people.
arn
[ Read All Comments ]
Analytics firm Chitika today released a report showing that by its metrics iOS has now surpassed OS X in overall web traffic share in the United States. Chitika's methodology involves an analysis...
One of the most frequent reasons for an iPhone to go on a trip to the Apple Store's Genius Bar is because of water damage. Typically, a water damaged iPhone can be replaced for a flat $199...
TheVerge's Joshua Topolsky summarizes the iPad 3 casing findings reported earlier today, but also adds his own sources regarding some details of the iPad 3.
Image from RepairLabs
As...
Last July, Apple discontinued the white MacBook from its consumer lineup, pushing consumers toward the company's popular MacBook Air line or the 13-inch MacBook Pro. The company didn't kill...
Popular iPhone Twitter client Tweetbot has finally arrived on the iPad, with a user interface instantly familiar to any current Tweetbot user. Designed for the Twitter power-user, Tweetbot packs a...
