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| FastMac's MBP Battery |
| Written by Gareth Hay | ||||||||||||||||||
| Friday, 08 December 2006 | ||||||||||||||||||
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Power Up!
This article we're going to take a break from our usual classics and take a look at something a little more modern. Apple's MacBook Pro became one of the most desired Macs as soon as it was announced, and many people, including myself, pre-ordered one before they had even been manufactured. Needless to say, I wasn't disappointed. Then, about two months into using my new Mac, I suddenly realized the battery lasted less time than my old iBook G4 and ran out long before I could watch the entire extended edition of Lord of the Rings on DVD. I obviously wasn't the only one who noticed, and the people at FastMac have added to their higher capacity battery line-up with a new MacBook Pro battery at $99. I was lucky enough to get my hands on one and test it against my six-month-old Apple supplied battery. FastMac claim a 68% capacity increase, but then again Apple claims up to five hours of use out of their batteries so it will be an interesting comparison. I wanted to put these claims to the test so I prepared to put them head to head in real world challenges. Testing For accurate results, I did everything exactly the same for both batteries. I used Apple's default "better battery life" setting with Airport and Bluetooth on. To monitor battery performance I used the excellent MiniBatteryLogger from Claudio Procida. I charged my MacBook Pro overnight. Once booted and MiniBatteryLogger was up and running, I unplugged external power. I went about a usual days work, surfing the web, checking email, Photoshopping, web designing, until the battery was so low it forced the MacBook to sleep. I then left the MacBook to discharge the remainder of the battery until hibernation occurred. At that point, I re-attached the MagSafe connector and woke the MacBook Pro from hibernation, and continued work, measuring the time to recharge to 100%. I did this a total of three times to ensure accuracy. Results After the smoke had settled and the dust had cleared, FastMac's option was obviously a winner. Their MacBook Pro high capacity battery averaged 56% more real time usage; roughly over 30 more minutes. This is only about 12% under their marketing claim. Compare FastMac's claim to Apple's of five hours, where I get just over two, I find 12% is astonishingly realistic. 
Quirks The frequent changing of batteries did seem to have an adverse effect on my system management controller. There were three occasions where my MacBook Pro was on battery power, but the Mac would tell me "No Batteries available". If I put the unit to sleep, or rebooted, it found the battery again and was a cause of concern. I can't point the blame at the FastMac battery, as it could easily be my Mac at fault because the quirk happened while swapping to the Apple battery on at least one occasion. Regardless of these occurrences, all my tests showed consistent results. Conclusion For the most part, any judgment on a battery is subjective. FastMac promised me a higher capacity battery than the Apple's stock. They delivered within the ballpark that they said they would. Some may argue that it isn't worth the purchase. However, I find that I am very happy with the results. I can watch the extended version of Lord of the Rings on my fully charged MacBook Pro for the first time. Plus, having a FastMac battery, I will always have my old Apple battery in your bag. By my testing, I'm effectively getting over five hours of use.
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