International Mac Podcast

Ok. I have had enough. I am going to break my non-blogging spell, and actually contribute something textual to this podcast. The summer is a perfect time because I actually have some semblance of my life back. Now, this blog post might make you think, which I hope it does, and it might just make you angry. Feel free to comment, or email me directly, at connor@impodcast.tv

So, as you might have guessed from the title (You know, that clause in big bold letters above the body of the post. You can’t miss it!), this post is about the new, built-in battery of the new unibody MacBook Pros. There has been grumbling, there has been complaining, and there has even been full blown temper tantrums. You know what? I am sick of it. That’s right. I’ve had enough. I actually LIKE (gasp) the new built-in batteries, and I am here to bust dispell the myths about them.

Myth #1 – (read in high pitched, whiny, rushed voice) My battery doesn’t last long enough and I need to be able to swap out batteries.

First. Pay attention when Phil talks. Yes, I know he isn’t Steve “his holiness” Jobs, but Phil is one smart cookie, and knows what he is talking about. These batteries last for seven (7) hours. Yes, that is the amount of time to go through a school day, or your average work day (minus lunch), or even all but the longest of flights.

For most people that amount of battery life is more than plenty. Before, you couldn’t get quite that much per battery, usually around 4-5 hours. So you either dealt with it, and plugged in whenever you could, or you could go spend $130 for a new battery, and swap them out; but I am willing to bet, very few people to that, which is the purpose of the poll at the bottom of the page. Please answer truthfully, as I am legitimately interested in the answers. I’ll let it go for a couple of weeks,  and it will eventually be discussed on an episode of IMP Live.

Myth #2 – Well, I am going on a really long flight to Timbuktu and its a 13 hour flight and I need to swap the batteries out to have enough battery life. When Apple measures battery life, they test their portables in a specific configuration. You can find the full configurations over at http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/battery/, but here is the most important piece of information:

The wireless productivity test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing various websites and editing text in a word processing document with display brightness set to 50%.

In addition, Apple uses the “Better Battery Life” setting in the Energy Saver system Preferences. This means, if you need to, you can squeeze even more time out of your battery. Here are some tips for doing so.

• If you have dual graphics cards, use the lower power, 9400M, instead of the 9600MGT

• Turn the brightness down on the screen to the lowest possible level. If you are on a dark airplane, you might even be able to turn it to the lowest setting. Same for you all with the glowing keyboard. On the other hand, if you are outside in bright sunlight, and you position yourself so that the sun is shining directly (not at an angle) onto the screen, you might even be able to turn the backlight all the way off! I have done it before…

• Please, use the “Better Battery Life” setting in Energy Saver. Its there for a reason.

• Turn off radios you aren’t using. On an airplane or using Ethernet? Turn of Wifi. Don’t need bluetooth? Turn it off too. Turning off the IR receiver might also help.

• If you want to watch a DVD on the plane, copy it onto your hard drive using software like Handbrake or MactheRipper (Google them) to make a backup copy onto your hard drive, and leave the disk at home. Of course, you wouldn’t do anything naughty with the copy, would you? You will most certainly delete it from your drive afterward, won’t you? In all seriousness, a spinning disk in the drive is a huge power suck.

If you have any other battery saving tips, post them in the comments. In additon, on that really long 13 hour flight to Timbuktu, how much of that flight will you be playing Plants vs. Zombies, versus sleeping. Yeah, thats what I thought.

Myth #3 – Well I use my computers for years before replacing them and I don’t want to have to go into the Apple store to have them replaced.

Again with the whole Listen to Phil thing. He said you can recharge these bad boys over 1000 times. Where your average battery will start losing charge around 200-250, and you will be seriously hurting by 300. For the average person, 1000 charges is over five years. I know money is tight and macs last a long time, but you’ll probably have moved on by then, and if you do want to have the battery replaced, it costs no more than a normal battery, and is about a ten minute operation. $130 dollars every five years is not a huge problem. Just because I am so nice, I am going to share some more tips (I am just loaded with tips today) about how to keep your battery healthy.

• Try to keep it within its “happy range,” or the range of temperatures that it preferes to work in. That information, and loads of other fun facts about Apple’s batteries can be found over at http://www.apple.com/batteries/.

• If you are going to store a battery unused for extended periods of time (months or more), to minimize the negative effect this has on the battery, store it at around 50% charge.

• Battery calibration reminds the battery, its controller chip, the cells themselves, and the computer how much of a charge it can hold, and helps the battery hold as much of a charge as possible, for as long as possible. This process should be done at least once a month for optimum battery performance. The following information gleaned from http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490:

1.  Plug in the power adapter and fully charge your notebook’s battery until the light ring or LED on the power adapter plug changes to green and the onscreen meter in the menu bar indicates that the battery is fully charged.

2. Allow the battery to rest in the fully charged state for at least two hours. You may use your computer during this time as long as the adapter is plugged in.

3. Disconnect the power adapter while the computer still on and start running the computer off battery power. You may use your computer during this time. When your battery gets low, the low battery warning dialog appears on the screen.

4. At this point, save your work.  Continue to use your computer; when the battery gets very low, the computer will automatically go to sleep.

5. Turn off the computer or allow it to sleep for five hours or more.

6. Connect the power adapter and leave it connected until the battery is fully charged again.

I hope these tips helped your mobile computing life, and that I have dispelled some of the myths surrounding these excellent built-in batteries. Please vote in the poll below, as I am interested in seeing if my assumptions are correct.