[Ti] Battery Life

[Bill Palmer]

My view on battery performance is that it is like CPU performance, or RAM/disk
capacity - demand will always expand to exceed capacity :-)  The first few days I had
my Ti 800, it seemed blindingly fast (moving up from a 400 Mhz Lombard), possessed of
infinite battery life, etc.  Then I started running OS X, got an Airport base station
and some extra RAM to shoe-horn in more applications, and suddenly it was time to
start muttering about short battery life while waiting for the pokey computer...

I did see an explanation of how Apple came up with the battery life claim for the
Lombard when it came out.  Plug the computer in to the AC adapter, boot, copy all
applications and data to a RAM disk, launch them, turn down the screen brightness to
the minimum, spin down the disk, then unplug the AC adapter and start the stopwatch.
Don't disturb the machine at all.  With a fresh battery it probably did last as long
as they claimed, but who needs such an expensive paperweight?  One is much safer
treating the battery life claims as "guaranteed not to exceed" numbers :-)

Luke Mazzeri wrote:

> On Friday, December 20, 2002, at 09:43 PM, Daniel Borge wrote:
>
> > Hi there
> >
> > Just was wondering what's the battery life when u guys watch a DVD
> > film without being connected?
> > I know mine says 5 hours when it's fully charged, but it changes down
> > to 3 hours when I open Corel Draw....
>
> For a funny and entertaining conversation...  just call apple or call
> an apple store and ask to talk to an Apple Genius and ask them this
> question:
>
> "Excuse me for my ignorance Mr. Apple Genius, Sir, but just EXACTLY
> which specific 'configuration' of the iBook/Powerbook is it that gets
> you 5 hours of (advertised) battery life?"
>
> It's hilarious to watch them squirm and dance around the issue...  You
> get a LOT of VERY good professional-level non-answers.  I was told by
> one Apple rep on the phone, that "That 5 hours is probably not
> attainable, and it may refer to a laboratory situation..."
>
> I have NO respect for a company who feels that they have to lie about a
> product to coerce you into buying it.
>
> I did a poll on the mac-l list asking about people various
> 'configurations' and the average and maximum battery life that they
> were achieving and i don't recall hearing anything above a 2.5 hour
> average...  Since day one my TiBook never achieved more than 2.75
> hours...  and i normally get two...  Seems that 5 hours can only be
> accomplished w/ two batteries...
>
> ---
> http://www.mp3.com/lukeetyrnal   (music no one likes)
> etyrnal at ameritech.net
>
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