Comments on: Battery Life on MacBook Air (2012) is Better Than Advertised

By: Brandon P

Brandon P — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 06:00:52 +0000

I have gotten fairly good battery life out of my 2012 MBA, but I don’t think I’m seeing 7 hours. I have been intrigued in the last few days to learn that some seem to get improved battery performance in one browser over another. I live in Chrome, often with Google Drive open, and some have said that Chrome is more intense on the system.

I have found a lot of this talk on the web before 2011, but I haven’t seen much on it over the last year. I’m curious to know if people do see much of a battery difference between the newest versions of Chrome and Safari.

By: lawrence

lawrence — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 13:49:41 +0000

I also have the mid-2012 macbook air 13 but i only get about 4-5hours of battery life with 70% screen brightness, itunes and safari open.

By: Kelvin

Kelvin — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 21:30:41 +0000

I just got the 2012 MacBook Air 13″, and I have the screen at around 45% brightness.

I am averaging about 6-7 hours, so I really can’t complain.
I usually just have iTunes and Safari open, with about 2-3 tabs.

Can’t really complain.

By: shubenmer

shubenmer — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 22:17:38 +0000

MacBook Air1.4. Brightness is about 79% keyboard backlight is on, wi-fi is on.
Battery life is 1.5…2 hours.
It is just impossible to work at all, I’m afraid that I should bring my Mac to service. Or maybe it will be better to get rid of it and buy ordinary PC/laptop

By: kimberly

kimberly — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 01:37:08 +0000

not happy with the battery life of mac air 11 inch…..this is my second one since apple genius bar could not fix the battery issue of first one in July 11…so this new mac air 11 inch June 12 …is exactly the same…the my ipad battery life is sooo much better… i love apple computers…just disappointed in the battery life of this mac air 11 inch!!

By: Ken

Ken — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 18:52:21 +0000

+1 on awful battery life. I have a 1 month old 2012 11″ MBA and I’m thrilled if I can get 3 hours out of it. Running Mountain Lion (came with machine), 8GB RAM, and a OWC 480GB SSD.

By: Ronna

Ronna — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 12:25:08 +0000

I can’t fathom where you people are getting this battery life from? I have the newest Macbook Air, and I am LUCKY to get 3 hours and I mean lucky! Do you people work for Apple?

By: Asif

Asif — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 17:15:49 +0000

I have the latest macbook retina pro 1gb memory. I have just installed 10.8.1 with the following result.

* Test 1 (1hr 45mins)
100% brightness, 100% keyboard illumination
Running VirtualBox (a virtual desktop)
Very heavy usage, downloading heavily where cpu is hitting 52% and fan is constantly on

* Test 2 (5hrs 25mins)
100% brightness, 100% keyboard illumination
Surfing the web listening to music

* Test 3 (8hrs 20mins)
50% brightness, keyboard illumination off

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 10:35:00 +0000

I wish!! My MBA 2012 13″ gets 5-6 hours whilst surfing with low brightness and nothing running. All because I installed Mountain Lion. Lion was fine with 7-9 hours.

By: Eric (skeptic)

Eric (skeptic) — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 23:09:44 +0000

Get rid of flash or, better yet, use click-to-flash.

By: Richard

Richard — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 22:06:11 +0000

Me neither. Actual battery life for me is much less. Web browsing on firefox with the screen on 50% and nothing else open I get about 4 hours. I’ve checked activity monitor and nothing else is running besides Apple processes and these are not significant.

Very disappointing, not sure if I have a bad battery or what. I am also still on Lion because I’m hearing many Mountain Lion users are seeing huge battery drain. This is a bummer to say the least.

By: betttergetapc

betttergetapc — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 15:44:44 +0000

turn brightness down

By: LL

LL — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 14:57:05 +0000

I just bought the Macbook Air mid 2012 13″ 128GB version. It might say more than 8 hours on the icon but when you’re timing how long the battery will last, it only last for about 4-5 hours; that is just browsing the web and using word. It is still under performing… I am terribly disappointed… I am NOT getting 7-8 hours battery life AT ALL.

By: Patz

Patz — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 22:47:25 +0000

Same here, but with my early 2009 13″ MBA (w internal SDD).Medium to heavy use. And this baby still roars. Apple most definitely rocks.

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 00:30:26 +0000

I regularly get about 4-5 hours with heavy use, MacBook Air 2010