MacBook Pro battery has 20% less juice than predecessor
Remember during Apple’s notebook spectacular when Steve mentioned that the new MacBook Pro could get a whopping 5 hours of battery life (when using the lamer 9400M chip, that is)? Well, it looks like that number is even more impressive than it originally sounded. Ryan Block noticed that the new MacBook Pro’s battery actually has less juice to work with than its predecessor – about 20% less in fact.
Whereas last year’s model packed a 5600mAh / 60Wh battery, the new ones sport only a 4700mAh / 50Wh battery. The new MacBooks are also down to 45Wh from 55Wh.
Of course it stands to reason that as Apple keeps squeezing its laptops thinner and thinner that something has got to give, but some people are now wondering (although we’re not quite sure why) if this decrease in available power means you’ll be buying a new battery sooner than in previous models as the batteries eventually fail. Given that replacing a cracked screen or even a key on the keyboard now requires replacing the entire top or bottom section of the MacBooks with their new uni-body construction, it is looking like these new portables from Apple might be their costliest to maintain.
Why would having less capacity than before increase the failure rate if the use time (and therefore the number of recharges you do in a given time) remains about the same?
If the use time was worse then this would make sense, but if you are going to be recharging the same number of times then it is totally spurious. The use time sounds about the same as what I got on my white MB for the first 18 months.
Paul
I would think that it is a size issue. I would also hope that the new lines are more efficient in the use of the battery to give it a similar on battery run time as before.
I don’t really understand the idea that they will not last as long in the sense of them breaking down sooner?
That’s something else… But, I was just over at the MacWorld site, and there was an article about FastMac’s extended batteries. Seems they’ve got solutions for everything up to the msot recent MBP (2.4ghz Penryn chip, dual firewire, etc.).
Maybe they’ll come out with an extended battery, and at the price they’re asking, it should negate any “often replacement” issues people may be having.