Corné Wielemaker

What in the heck are you trying to do with it? I get a pretty solid 3-4 hours out of mine. - Eric P

Did you turn Wifi off? - Pat Hawks

My HP battery (and I just had it replaced) lasts 10 minutes. I can't bring it on a flight because its just extra dead weight to carry around. Its not only Apple's batteries, we get the love too. - Matt Donders

That is bad. You might have the battery checked. I'm in the same boat with one of my machines (Windows), but another chuggs along fine. I'm swapping the battery to confirm the problem. - Eric @ CS Techcast

i was processing photos with adobe's bridge. No excuse why I shouldn't be able to get at least two hours out of it on a full charge. The battery life on my MBP has always sucked. - Thomas Hawk

Same thing happens on my windows machine. Battery Life sucks period. - George Smith

Is your battery getting old? My MBP battery lasts around 3.5-4 hours for general applications. - Todd Mundt

I'm in agreement, but two questions: 1. How old is the battery? 2. Do you calibrate it monthly or on a regular basis? - Kevin C. Tofel

I imagine that most people on the flight weren't doing anything nearly as processor, GPU, and disk intensive as that. <2 hours actually seems pretty reasonable there. Especially if you have an older MBP without the LED backlight. - James Williams (willia4)

My MBP battery life has deteriorated from 4h when new to less than 2 hours after 8 months. I concur, Apple batteries suck. If using Aperture the life is sucked right out of it in about 1 hour. - anne-mette

wifi was turned off. It's the same battery that I got with the mac about two and a half years ago. Yes, processing photos is intensive, but sheesh,I still should be able to at least get two hours. The battery on my old Dell laptop did much better than my MBP. - Thomas Hawk

photo processing *IS* intense CPU work. it's really the same level of work as video processing, just shorter bursts. - Jeremy Toeman

It is really bad when your processing photos. My MBP is lucky to last a full hour of photo editing in Lightroom or Photoshop and its only about 8 months old. - Sean Davis

Battery tech still has a long way to go to meet consumer expectation. - Brian

I've never calibrated the battery Kevin. How do I do that? - Thomas Hawk

You're using your phone on the plane, aren't you? ;-) - Dave Roth

My 4 year old laptop gotused for the first time in ages the other day. Its one hour battery life was now 9 minutes - web browsing. And I can see my Dell Inspiron's batter life slowly declining after 8 months of use. Sigh! We need fuel cells. - Roberto Bonini

If you've been using the battery for two and half years, it's time to replace it. - Mathew Spolin

[TrollingForFun]It's not Apple's fault, it's yours!{/TrollingForFun] - Yuvi (has IRL friends!)

It's pretty easy to calibrate and I set a Google Calendar app't to remind me to do this monthly. Here's the official support doc from Cupertino: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT... - Kevin C. Tofel

haha Dave. Yep was using my iPhone on the plane. I've never bought into the whole turn your cell phone off on the plane myth. - Thomas Hawk

This is why I carry my Dell instead of my MacBookPro. Same problem. My Dell's battery lasts more than five hours. My MacBookPro lasts two. I hear new MacBooks are a lot better, though, if you get the small ones. - Robert Scoble

that does suck -- yikes - Shey

How hard would it be for them to install 12V outlets? I've been on American flights where they had these in coach, and it was quite nice. Keep the soda and peanuts and give me some power! - Rob Witte via Alert Thingy

scoble, save me a seat if you can. In a cab on my way to msft right now. - Thomas Hawk

Nooo! Not what I want to hear after just purchasing my first MacBook Pro. - Ryan

did you turn the screen brightness all the way down?? - Connor P Jackson via twhirl

My Dell laptop battery kicks ass and it's attached to a laptop that cost about half as much as a Mac. - Stephan Miller

i can get my macbook to last 6+ hours with screen all the way down and bluetooth and wifi off - Connor P Jackson via twhirl

But it's a Dell laptop - Ryan

That's pretty strange - my Macbook gets 4 hours plus in "flight mode" (wifi off, BT off, brightness medium), and my friends / colleagues with MBP's have similar experiences. One thing I have noticed - batteries don't last forever, so budget on replacing them every 18 months or so if you are a heavy user - Paul Johnston

@Matt Donders Here's the procedure for calibrating your HP laptop battery. http://h20239.www2.hp.com/tech... - Paul Short

My MacBook Pro is a little over 2 years old, and I'm lucky if I can get 2 hours of battery life anymore. - Brandon Wood

Connor gotta keep the screen turned up to get the processing on the photos right. Thanks Kevin, will check out calibration. - Thomas Hawk

You could always buy third party batteries that will match the finish of the MBP and have at least 30% more capacity - Glenn Batuyong via twhirl

Mine lasts about 4 hours. Remember to dim the screen brightness. Helps to avoid processor-intensive stuff if you can. Watch movies on your iPod. Also, every 4-6 weeks, run the battery all the way down and re-charge. Try not to always have the power adapter plugged in (like at night). Makes battery last far longer, don't have to replace as often. - Bill Brandon

Thanks for the message. I was seriously considering switching from a ThinkPad over to a Mac for personal use (and running VMWare.) This is definitely something for me to weight and consider more. - Cindy L

Thomas, at this point in the battery's life-cycle (2.5 yrs), the calibration won't yield miraculous results. I'd still do it, but I'd temper my expectations since the battery has gone through so many cycles. Good luck! - Kevin C. Tofel

Maybe you should check the battery status. Not that I'm saying that MBP battery lasts long, but I get two full hours and something more if I turn off wifi (which I guess you don't need when flying) and set a low brightness. I never seen a Window machine running longer than my MBP. - Federico Fasce

My first generation MacBook Pro battery still gets a charge of about 3 hours. When I'm on the road I have a Location setting called "None" which automatically turns off Bluetooth, Wifi and inactivates those network ports. With Quicksilver I can just type "none" and it will auto switch. Then when I'm at a hotspot i just type "wd" which autoswitches me to only-wifi port on, DHCP mode. At my job I'll type "work" and it autoswitches to only-ethernet, static DHCP. It keeps all unnecessary ports off. Works well! - Glenn Batuyong

Your battery is probably 18 months old or older and is on its last legs. Lithium batteries have a very short life relatively and go from good to bad in a very short time frame. Sounds like you need a new battery. - Joel Ordesky

Weird. I have a 2 yr-old black Macbook, and the battery still lasts at least 3 hrs. - Rubin Sfadj

grab a tool called coconutBattery and see if your battery can't hold much of a charge anymore - if so, buy a new battery. To prolong battery life, turn off keyboard backlighting and lower your screen brightness. I find doing photo work (Lightroom, Photoshop, etc.) on battery will drain it quickly, so usage will play a part. - Kevin Williams

check out coconut battery to monitor the maximum charge your battery can handle. http://www.coconut-flavour.com... - Kortney Jarman

Usage will definitely play part. Biggest power consumers are LCD and processors. So screen to dark and be nice with cpu usage! - Corné Wielemaker

I get about 2.5 hours with no special tweaks on a 17" mbp. Definitely better than any Windows notebook I've had. - invariant via twhirl