It’s funny. When Apple announced it’s new sealed-battery MacBook Pros last week, almost nobody complained. Remember the fuss about the iPhone’s non-removable battery? Or the MacBook Air? Or the 17” MacBook Pro? It seems like people have finally realized most users hardly ever have to swap out a battery, and if you need some extra juice then an external powerpack works fine.
It seems that Apple wasn’t just trying to annoy its customers, either. The new MacBook Pros have been tested by AnandTech and the batteries last up to (almost) 50% longer. This is without any appreciable increase in weight. How has Apple managed such a thing? Tessellation. The picture above, from Apple, shows that you can squeeze a lot more battery into a small space if you don’t waste that space with gaps. The new batteries are square: the old ones cylindrical.
The 13” gets a decent 30% boost, too, but the winner is the 15”. Anandtech’s test had the machine running for a full eight hours before it died: 8.13 hours in fact, running a light test involving Flash-less web browsing. More strenuous tests cut this time down but as Apple only claims seven hours of life, this extra “free” hour is pretty impressive. All day computing in a regular, full-sized notebook? You got it.
The Best Battery Life I’ve Ever Seen [Anandtech]
