The new MacBooks are here, with blazing fast processors and monster GPUs. But one spec seemingly went backwards: the battery life shrunk from 10 hours on previous models to seven hours on the new ones. What gives?
It’s acutally no cause for concern. Starting with the most recent MacBook Airs, Apple adopted a new method for battery testing that more accurately reflects real world usage. “Wireless Web protocol testing”, as they call it, involves setting the display to about 50 per cent brightness and surfing the web’s 25 most popular sites. There, they repeat whatever they deem to be the site’s main function, sometimes involving the playback of Flash video.
Your battery life will still depend on how you use your computer, of course, but I’ll take seven hours of real world-tested battery life over 10 hours of display-all-the-way-dimmed-and-typing-in-Text Edit any day. [Tech Crunch]