Filed under: Hardware, Portables, iBook, PowerBook
coconutBattery
Ambrose, my trusty Powerbook, has served me well, but he hasn't had the staying power as of late that he enjoyed when he was just a wee Powerbook. I'm lucky if I get a little over an hour worth of computing power from my current battery.I knew that something was up with the battery and coconutBattery has proved it to me. This great freeware app gives you some useful stats about your battery, it does it well and that's all it does.
At the moment Ambrose is 19 months old, the battery has been through 285 battery loadcycles and it has half of its original battery capacity (at the moment is has a capacity of 2138 mAh, it started life capable of 4200 mAh).
Download the app and post the results in the comments of this entry and we can get a very unscientific survey of Apple's battery life.
Found via.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
William Pramana said 8:24AM on 8-21-2005
My battery is 20 Months old, and it's been through 437 loadcycle. Current capacity status is 37% (1587 mAh out of 4400 mAh).
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Nigel Radestock said 8:27AM on 8-21-2005
Age of Mac:- 10 months
Loadcycles:- 150
Current Battery Capacity:- 4167 mAh
Original Battery Capacity:- 4400 mAh
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Brian Rose said 8:29AM on 8-21-2005
Odin (now 21 months old) has lost a ridiculous amount of its battery capacity. I didn't think it was as bad as it is:
Current Capacity: 1475mAh
Original Capacity: 4200mAh
Loadcycles: 422
That equates to an average of 6.46mAh lost per load cycle, compared to your 7.24mAh per cycle. (That is, if I did the math right at 6:30am.) I'm sure the age of the battery somehow factors as well. :
Time to buy a new battery.
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Apoco-Lips said 8:45AM on 8-21-2005
I read Apple will replace your battery if it drops to under half capacity in the first 2 years and if your covered by applecare, otherwise its just the first year, and in year 3 its $59 to replace as opposed to the regular price of $129.
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Ankalon said 8:47AM on 8-21-2005
I'll help average this out:
Age of Mac: 3 months
Loadcycles: 12
Current Battery Capacity: 4593
Original Battery Capacity: 4600 (guessed value)
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Apoco-Lips said 8:50AM on 8-21-2005
I wonder would the amount of RAM you have cause any effect on faster/slower battery consumption:
say you were to do the same tasks on 2 identical laptops except for the ram - say 512mb in one and 1.5gb in another.
which would use up all the juice first?
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Apoco-Lips said 8:52AM on 8-21-2005
Almost forgot:
1 month
6 loadcycles
4000 mAh across the board
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lokipo said 8:56AM on 8-21-2005
Thresher is now 9 months old, has been through 118 cycles and sports a whopping capacity of 4368 mAh (99%).
I am quite pleased. :-)
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Joakim said 9:14AM on 8-21-2005
35 Months
325 Loadcycles
Original: 4400 mAh
Current: 4199 mAh (95%)
It seem it doesn't know I bought a new battery in May!
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jc said 9:20AM on 8-21-2005
After 34 months and 453 cycles, my iBook has a battery capacity of 4192 mAh (down from 4200).
That sounds astounding, until you realize that the current battery charge is 881 mAh (21%), and is unlikely to get above 25%. Any ideas from the gallery for steps to take?
I've tried resetting the PMU, but that was some time ago. And every now and then, the reading will pop to 100%, but will crap out in the low 70% range. All that spare capacity has me intruiged/confused.
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Piers Morgan said 9:25AM on 8-21-2005
I imagine the computer with less RAM would use more power, because paging in/out spins the hard drive, which drains power more than RAM. It would also depend on how much RAM you used: if you never ran many programs at once, the effect would not be as great.
My battery's doing pretty well. My 15" Powerbook is 12 months old, has run 111 cycles and has a remaining capacity of 4362/4400 mAh. I lug it around quite a bit, but whenever it's away from my desk, it's usually plugged in.
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Andy said 9:34AM on 8-21-2005
15" PB, 18 mos old, 261 cycles, 3043 mAh current capacity vs 4200 mAh new.
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Costas said 9:45AM on 8-21-2005
I am pleasantly surprised.
Age of my mac: 32 months (last TiBook)
Battery-Loadcycles: 104
Current Battery Capacity: 4151 mAh!! (original: 4200mAh)
I guess it pays to connect to an outlet whenever possible.
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Guillermo said 9:46AM on 8-21-2005
15" 1.5 GHz PowerBook
Current Battery Charge: 3339 mAH
Maximum Battery Charge: 3915 mAH
Current Battery Capacity: 3915 mAH
Original Battery Capacity: 4400 mAH
Battery Loadcycles: 349
Age: 12 months
Charger Connected: No
Battery is Charging: No
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Mauro Mello Jr. said 9:53AM on 8-21-2005
Battery status: Charger connected, battery charging, 100%
Current battery charge: 4400 mAh
Maximum battery charge: 4400 mAh
Current battery capacity: 4400 mAh
Original battery capacity: 4400 mAh
Load cycles: 125
Age of Mac: 5 months
Al PB 15", 1 GB RAM, 100 GB HDD
Energy Saver settings: Power adapter, processor performance @ highest; battery, processor performance @ reduced
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Piers Morgan said 9:56AM on 8-21-2005
You know what utility I would like to see? A menu meter or widget or something that shows how much you're using the battery at the moment, in terms of mA. So say you've got a capacity of 4000-odd mAh, and you know that your battery can last for 3 hours, that means you're using roughly 22.2 mAh of capacity per minute. A utility that showed the exact figure would be nice. Then you could see how much of an effect dimming your display, turning off wifi/bluetooth or keyboard backlighting was actually having. At the moment, I know doing those things will let me work for longer, but how much longer?
I think my maths and units may be a bit convoluted, but you get my point?
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tom said 10:13AM on 8-21-2005
http://uberwald.com/pics/ss/plugged.jpg
12" iBook, 768MB, 1 month older than I remembered...
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big jake said 10:31AM on 8-21-2005
15" 1GHz ALBook with 1.5 GB RAM
current capacity: 2371 mAh
original capacity: 4200 mAh
loadcycles: 247
age of my mac: 24 months
Drat. Anything I can do to increase the capacity a little? Or must I buy a new battery and do what Apple suggests to keep it fresh?
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Jonathan said 10:32AM on 8-21-2005
The tool says that my Mac (a Powerbook G4 at 1 ghz) is 17 months old, but I only bought it fifteen months ago. (?) Anyway, the battery is on it's 216th load cycle and still has 86% of its capacity. (3633/4200)
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John said 10:33AM on 8-21-2005
my batterys current charge is about 88% of the total available charge it can hold
my battery can now hold only about 2/3 of the total capacity it when the batter was brand new
the battery in my PowerBook has taken 340 loadcycles in its lifetime
my PowerBook (Al) is 2 years old (I didnt realize that)
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