Which model of Macintosh has the longest battery life?

Question

I was exclusively a PC man (specifically Dell, Gateway, and HP), but I am now planning to buy a Mac, because my sister has a Mac, with a battery life (much) longer than mine, and I would like to benefit from that. Could anyone suggest the best Mac to buy if I want the longest battery life possible. I mean really the longest, even if it sacrifices other things to achieve it.

Answer 1

According to Apple's website, the 13" MacBook Air and all of the MacBook Pros have 7 hours of battery life. This means that there are seven laptops for you to choose from: Four 13" computers, two 15", and one 17". The possibility of getting more than 7 hours exists, because this number is determined in this manner:

The wireless web test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing 25 popular websites with display brightness set to 50%.

—Apple (at the very bottom of the page, point number 2).

Answer 2

My experience is the entry level 13" MacBook Air is quite miserly, but no where near the battery runtime of the enormous 17 inch MacBook Pro. Even with a high end GPU and CPU - it has so much power it's the winner for all day performance according to people I know that have them.

The current 15 inch MacBook Pro are a bit more power hungry than the ones of the mid 2009 vintage - so if you can wait, many are speculating whatever new Ivy Bridge based MacBook Pro eventually gets released will likely be less hot (and get better battery life) than the current CPU/GPU lineup. If you can't wait and need, need, need all day battery life - I'd pick up a used Mid 2009 or early 2010 model and just watch the CPU to make sure you quit programs that will reduce it from 10 hour life down to 5 to 7 life at a more active CPU load. The nice thing about the older mac is you can pin the GPU to the integrated one and know it will be miserly with the power.

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Now if I don't take your question literally, but wholistically - you should get a $399 iPad and the $999 MacBook Air. Together, they are a potent combination for Netflix and productivity - I could see you getting 10 hours of netflix and 5 hours of laptop life in "one charge"

Answer 3

It depends on what you mean by "battery life". Charge capacity will decrease over the usable life of the battery, so if you mean "max charge capacity", @Mahnax gives you this information above.

If you mean longest usable life, this is largely dependent on usage patterns. Different factors play into usable life, as this article points out:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3008527?start=0&tstart=0

The key point of this article is that you should use (read: disconnect from AC power) your battery a little bit every day to get the most usable life out of it.