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I purchased Macbook Air 13 in late 2012. It is advertised as having 7 hour battery life. After a few months of use, with maximum charge it gives me only 2 hours.

Is this normal?

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Gives you 2 hours of doing what? The battery life depends heavily on what you are doing on the computer. – Gerry Jan 10 at 18:09
mostly using the internet (but not videos on the internet) – Aby Sassoon Jan 10 at 18:22
I have to agree in that I really don't get how some reviewer and commentators report they get the 7h battery life under normal usage conditions. While I understand that the battery life varies, I'm used to getting about 3:45 - 4:15h of battery life on my mid 2012 13" MBA. If I pay attention to saving power, I get more time, but not even close to 7h... – gentmatt Mar 25 at 16:26

2 Answers

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I would download and install Battery Health from the Mac App Store. Allow it to run and determine if your battery's current maximum charge threshold.

In the case that your battery is no longer charging to its maximum amount, I would make an appointment with your local Genius Bar for some in-warranty love.

If your battery is "just fine", you'll want to consider lowering your screen's brightness, reducing the number of open apps and potentially uninstalling Flash, turning off Bluetooth if you don't use it, and making sure your GPU and CPU power settings are enabled.

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up vote 3 down vote

If you're not using a lot of power, this isn't normal. On http://www.apple.com/macbookair/features.html#battery it says up to 7 hours, clearly implying that you could get less. The footnote as text as follows:

The wireless web test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing 25 popular websites with display brightness set to 50%. The standby test measures battery life by allowing a system, connected to a wireless network, to enter standby mode with Safari and Mail applications launched and all system settings left at default. Battery life varies by use and configuration.

So, if you had all of the the brightness on max, CPU topped out, GPU working and storage downloading, I would expect the battery to last between 2 and 3 hours, so you may have a perfectly normal battery or there may be an issue. This sort of thing is exactly what the Genius bar and AppleCare exist to answer on a case by case basis if the online tips don't work or you want to seek a professional opinion and possible repair.

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