[P1] Battery performance with age

[albookuser at Phreaker.net]

On 6/12/04 5:33 PM, "Ruffin Bailey" <rufbo1 at comcast.net> wrote:

> I've got an iBook 500 and the battery that used to give me 4-5 hours of use is
> starting to drop to under 2.
> 
> That got me wondering how long a typical iBook battery will last, what
> experiences others have had, and if there's a preferred replacement battery
> for the G3 iceBook models.
>
How long your battery lasts is going to depend largely on how you use your
machine. Most people tend to notice a small loss of battery life after a
year and then notice faster degradation from there on. I generally replace
my battery around the 18 month point.
> 
> I've also started using the iBook almost exclusively in OS 9, having used it
> in OS X up until I purchased a 1 GHz iMac -- my totally unscientific study
> with my single iBook seems to suggest OS X might do a bit better battery
> management, but I'm suspcicious that's a result of using it in X more when the
> battery was younger and me not being able to shake that experience.  Guess I
> should try and figure out some fair way to test the two against each other.
>
OS X battery management is getting better but it is lags far behind OS 9.
Shortly after Jaguar was released, I took two tangerine iBooks with new
batteries home and tested them over a long weekend. Basically, with OS 9 I
could get about 4.5 hours on a full charge - with OS X I got just short of 3
and recently with Panther I eked out about 3.5
> 
david