Decaflon

http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

My battery has been through 51 cycles so far, most of them aren't full drain down to the red cycles, but it should help give you an indication.

Normal usage sees slightly over 3 hours before I need to plug in. If I'm just word processing and browsing I can get closer to 4. I have gotten over 4 once, but I was pressed and without an outlet, so I turned the screen brightness very far down.

I use my macbook daily.

Actually, I have a 1st gen. Powerbook G4, which I've kind of handed over to the sig other to play around with so he can be a vicariously-living Apple user (while hating his Alienware 12"). The battery hasn't been changed at all since its purchase and it still goes for 2.5 hours. Impressive.

My black Macbook has gone for almost 4 hours, before.

The battery hasn't been changed at all since its purchase and it still goes for 2.5 hours. Impressive.

I wish I could say the same for mine. Its original battery doesn't hold any charge at all and the adapter's fried.

I get 3 hours per full charge.

About 6 months in, I noticed my battery life diminishing greatly. At that point I took my battery into the Apple Store to get it replaced, which they did once they too saw I was only getting about 1 hour at full life.

I just got a macbook pro last week, and the battery life isn't the great. Definitely not 3-hours great.

Jensized, thanks for the link. Lately I haven't traveled beyond the store section of their site.

My macbook pro gets great life. As long as I don't rev up the fans to fight the heat coming off of it.

We had a recent battery discussion on iBAM - http://tinyurl.com/3ah554. Might help, might not

Brent

I have a macbook pro but i keep myne plugged in most of the time.. Battery life seems fine .. i can sit and watch tv with it on my lap and it hasn't run out yet.. :)

Joey,

That's not totally the best idea though... it's better to "work out" your battery a little for longer lifespan. just fyi...

Brent

A battery update for you Intel peeps. :)

As of today, my MacBook and I have been together for 40 days. Yesterday, while I was happily surfing (on battery), it powered down with no warning. Okay, these things happen. I plugged it in, restarted, and all seemed to be fine. Battery was about 70%. I did other things on my other machines and when it was about 90%, unplugged it and everything was good. This morning after using it unplugged for 1.5 hours it did the same thing, but decided to only work with the power adapter, not on battery alone. When trying to boot without AC, it would try to spin the CD and then fall back into off. When on AC, if I pulled the adapter, it would last two seconds and go blank. I made an appt. with the Apple store (Fashion Show Mall, Las Vegas) for 3:20pm. I got there right at 3:20pm and the monitors showed I was 5th in line. Store was fairly packed, at least one patron at every display item. Monitors also said the next MacGenius appt. was "approx. 8:30pm." Glad I made an appt! I was served about 15 min. later, during which time the monitors had changed to "No more MacGenius appts. available today, please try tomorrow." However, one guy came by without an appt. and was told he would be put on standby and to come back in 30 min.

Once I explained my issue with my MacBook battery, my Genius tried one of his batteries. "I just want to make sure it's your battery and not your motherboard." My machine worked fine, so he said "No problem, I'll have you out of here in 10 minutes." He got me a brand new battery, tested it, and put my old one in a box on the rear counter with four others. He pulled the serial number from the "About this Mac" area, didn't need my receipt for purchase date or anything. I had even printed this page: http://www.apple.com/support/macbook_macbookpro/batteryupdate/ to use as ammunition, but didn't need it. He did approve highly of my dashboard widget "iStat pro", available here: http://islayer.com/.

So the battery issue is a very common problem, and one that Apple has tried to deal with as painlessly as possible for the consumer. My Genius did ask if the battery showed an "X" in the icon bar, and I said no. Just wouldn't run on battery. On the way out of the store, one of the 3 MacBooks, in fact the one closest to the door, had an "X" on the battery icon. When I unplugged the power, it shut down immediately! The moral of the story is to contact Apple immediately with problems and give them a chance to fix them. Hope this helps others.

At first I would get well over 4 hours of life (surfing the web w/out watching videos and playing iTunes) on my Intel MacBook. 1 year later and my battery life is about 2 hours max. The annoying thing is my computer doesn't give me the low battery life pop-up window any more... it just dies. :(

I love my Macbook beyond words, so I know I shouldn't be saying this (her feelings would be hurt), but the one thing I miss about my old Dell laptop is the battery life. I must have bought some superbatttery or something, but I could get 6.5+ hours on a single charge... those were the days.

Depends on your processor. The centrinos are much better for battery life in most cases, but much less powerful

I've got an old PowerBook G4 that's a good four years old now. Possibly actually more. I've never had a problem with the battery life till very, very recently. I'm still on the original battery and I know I don't treat it properly (For most of the past four years it's staid plugged into the mains 24/7) and till the last month or so, I could still guarantee at least 2 or 3 solid computing on a full charge before I had to plug back in. This past month it's hit the tipping point and I can get about 30 to 50 minutes, depending if I'm using WiFi or not, before it will run out. And it doesn't run out in a predictable way either - I'll go from 75% to zero in a second, with it switching to sleep with no warning.

But all things considered, I'm not upset. I've got over four years of intensive computing out of the battery and, to be fair, I rarely take it walkies anyway (she says whilst typing sitting on the sofa!)

Mine was working great, until I installed Leopard. Now the power management seems wonky. Hopefully they'll fix that soon.