[special-op navy seal]

why is the battery life on the powerbooks lower than the battery life on the ibooks?

 

[Chealion]

Different types of batteries.

The iBooks carry a 50 or 61 watt hour battery (12" has the 50) while the Powerbooks only have a 47/46/58 watt hour battery (listed going 12"/15"/17").

Also, the Powerbooks tend to have more in them to have running (eg. more power hungry vid cards) so that is another factor as to why they have a lower battery life. Although with the latest battery update the times are getting closer to the 4.5 hour battery life promised.

 

[(( p g ))]

There's another factor, too. Most iBooks (except the newest ones) sport a G3, whereas the PBs use G4s which draw a bit more juice to run and cool.

My three favourite battery-savings tips:

- disable Airport until you need to get your email or check the web;
- drop your screen brightness way down to the second-to-last notch;
- don't run antivirus or software updates when you're unplugged.

 

[Lawrence]

My Lombard with my two batteries installed gets 5:40 hrs,
Which is great for my needs of just using it as a digital
darkroom when I'm out and about with the digital camera.

Dave

 

[Chealion]

D k Cornelius - Your profile says you have a TiBook. The Titanium Powerbooks were not included in this update.

Only iBooks (dual USB and newer) and the Aluminum Powerbooks were included.

 

[D k Cornelius]

"The Titanium Powerbooks were not included in this update."

Yes, that in fact was my point.

The TiBook has the problem, but is "not necessarily" included in the fix.

 

[D k Cornelius]

The upgrade to 10.2.8 put a serious dent in my PowerBook 667s battery life. (The second version of the upgrade - I thought I waited until it was safe.)

I was really hoping that the battery update released yesterday would fix whatever was changed, but it won't install on my computer.
"This software is not necessarily for your computer." WTF?

Was there a firmware change in the batteries in 10.2.8?
I've read that Apple is replacing batteries for people in this situation, but for once I didn't order Applecare with the PowerBook. And then they promptly bumped the price up to over $500. so didn't add it before the year ended.