Apple laptops have good running times battery life, but MacBook batteries, unfortunately, do not last forever. After a certain number of charging cycles, they lose their capacity and subsequently require replacement. The macOS operating system continuously monitors the health of the battery, so Mac users can always determine how worn the battery is and when it needs to be replaced.

Why check your Mac's battery health

The more you use your MacBook's battery, the faster it wears out. It is very important to be aware of its condition and technical serviceability, otherwise the user risks losing a working laptop at the most inopportune moment.

The check will be especially relevant in cases where the battery life of the device has been reduced or the charging process does not start when the cable is connected.

How to Check Your Mac's Battery Health

To open the battery information menu, press the Option (Alt) key on your keyboard and click the battery indicator icon in the OS X menu bar.

As you can see, the system displays the current state. The “normal” status means that the battery is functioning without any abnormalities. If your computer is far from new, then you can only rejoice at this state of the battery. Most likely, you use your laptop carefully and there is nothing to worry about.

The battery may have one of the following states:

Normal. The battery is functioning normally.

Expiration date. This means that the battery is already worn out. It is likely that in this state it operates on a single charge for less time than initially. If you see this warning, you don't have to worry because the battery is working properly. However, the battery will have to be replaced in the near future.

Replacement required. The battery functions normally, but retains its charge significantly worse than a new battery. Before replacement, such a battery can be used without harm to the computer.

Service required. It is better to replace the battery in this condition immediately. It may be damaged and subject to overheating. A faulty battery can harm other components of your MacBook.

What about battery charge cycles?

Mac laptop battery usage is quantified by the number of charge cycles. One recharge cycle corresponds to the full use of the battery's charge, but this does not mean that the battery was charged exactly once. For example, a laptop might be used for one hour or more during the day before being depleted of half its charge, and then be completely recharged. If you did the same thing the next day, it counts as one charge cycle, not two. It may take several days to complete one cycle.

The Mac tracks the number of recharge cycles. The batteries of most modern MacBooks, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro support about 1000 cycles, but depending on specific device and the conditions of its operation, their number can be reduced to 300, after which the battery requires replacement. You can find out how to find out the number of recharge cycles for a MacBook battery.

Now you know how to check the battery status of your MacBook. Check the condition of your battery regularly to protect yourself from unexpected and unpleasant breakdowns.

Apple is very sensitive to the quality of components in its products and this also applies to batteries. Offline time MacBooks work much more than other laptops, however, over time it slowly begins to decline. To ensure that this moment comes as late as possible, there are several simple tips, following which you can keep the battery in excellent condition throughout its entire service life, right up to the purchase of a new MacBook.

We will divide all recommendations into two categories, the first will help take care of your battery in the short term, that is, they are aimed at extending the battery life on a single charge; the latter are more forward-thinking and more concerned with preserving battery life over a long period of time.

Part 1: Increasing battery life

Using Energy Saving Options

The power saving settings in OS X are essentially minimal, but they work and this is also one of the ways to increase battery life.

Open system settings and go to the section Energy Saving. Using the sliders, we specify the time after which the display will turn off and your Mac will go into sleep mode. Also here you can specify whether to wake the computer from sleep mode to access the network and disk slowdown, which also affects energy savings.

In addition, you can use the scheduler to set it to automatically turn on/off, go to sleep, or reboot at specified times and days. This will be useful if you don't have to keep your MacBook constantly on, for example if you need to connect to it remotely when you're away from home.

Disabling Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and dimming brightness

Wireless interfaces are those features and technologies that continue to run in the background even when you're not using them, so you can safely turn them off if you don't need them at the moment. This way you can save about half an hour to an hour of battery life for tasks that do not require network activity. Experienced users know how to turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but for beginners, I’ll remind you that this can be done by clicking the corresponding icons in the menu bar (you can also turn them on again there).

In addition to this, it is worth mentioning the brightness of the display, which also puts a significant strain on the battery and reduces battery life. If you have the auto-brightness option disabled, I recommend turning it on. Well, don’t forget about manual adjustment using the function keys. Sometimes, in emergency cases, you can reduce the brightness level to the minimum comfortable level and last 30-40 minutes longer.

Disabling unnecessary peripherals

Obviously, powering peripheral devices connected to your MacBook puts additional strain on the battery, reducing battery life. It is advisable to disconnect all USB flash drives, hard drives, floppy drives and other equipment if you do not need them at the moment. If you have an internal SuperDrive installed, be sure to remove the drive from it as well.

Upgrading to OS X Mavericks

The current version of OS X 10.9 Mavericks, introduced last fall, is literally packed with features that are aimed at increasing energy efficiency. There is no point in listing them now, since we described in detail all the functions of Mavericks in a large review, but take my word for it that even old MacBooks after an update get a “second life” in terms of battery life.

If for some reason you have not updated yet, I strongly recommend that you do so, especially since the update is completely free and you can easily download it from your Mac App Store.

Part 2: Extending Battery Life

Battery diagnostics and monitoring

It is very important to monitor the health of your MacBook's battery, so you need to take care of this first. Any specialized utility will be suitable for these purposes, for example the free Battery Diag, which will tell you literally everything about your battery: initial and current capacity, battery health, number of cycles and much more. After installation, the application icon will be placed in the menu bar, from where you can find out the most complete information.

Using Battery Diag, in combination with other tips in this article, will allow you to identify various problems that in one way or another affect the battery life of your MacBook and its battery life.

Impact of temperatures

Operating temperatures have a significant impact on battery life. They usually depend on how you use and store your MacBook. Apple clearly indicates these temperatures, for example, for my MacBook Pro (and for yours too), the operating temperatures in which operation is allowed are in the range from +10º C to +35º C. It is emphasized that the best temperature is considered to be as close as possible to room temperature, that is +22º C. Basically, these recommendations are followed “automatically”, since we are all living people and we are also uncomfortable working at high or low temperatures. However, this should not be completely neglected, since there are people who like to lie with their MacBooks on beds or soft sofas, where they feel “hot” surrounded by pillows and due to the lack of natural air circulation. In such cases, it would not be superfluous to use a hard surface, a special stand or table.

Prevention

It is believed that modern lithium batteries do not require maintenance and therefore do not require special attention to charge-discharge cycles. However, some experts still recommend adhering to reasonable rules, namely: avoiding deep battery discharge and long-term operation from the network. With a deep discharge, I think it’s clear that this has a detrimental effect on the battery capacity. But periodic disconnection from the network and operation from the built-in battery is necessary because the MacBook is constantly connected to the network, the battery works under more difficult conditions than with slow charging and discharging in the range of 40-80%.

Thus, it is advisable to unplug your MacBook at least once a week and work on the battery, discharging it to 40-60%. And twice a year it is necessary to carry out a full cycle of discharging up to 20% (when the poppy itself asks for charging) and charging up to 100%.

Long-term storage

Poppy farmers rarely part with their pets for more than a few hours, but there are still situations when we have to go somewhere for a long time, leaving our aluminum friend with a bitten apple at home. In this case, as in operation, you need to adhere to simple rules.

Firstly, do not forget about the temperature regime. Apple allows storing its devices at temperatures from -25º C to +45º C, however, it is recommended that the temperature be as close as possible to +22º C. That is, you should not leave them in the summer sun on a windowsill or in an unheated room in winter.

Secondly, you need to remember about the battery, since during long-term storage it is the battery that suffers the most. Before leaving your MacBook for a long time (more than 6 months), discharge it approximately halfway and store it in this state; charging it to 100% is not recommended. And, of course, do not forget to turn it off completely in order to avoid deep discharge and possible loss of your data.

Do you have any questions, comments or suggestions? Welcome to the comments - I'm always happy to chat and help. Stay tuned, there is still a lot of interesting things to come!

In June of this year, new generation 11- and 13-inch MacBook Air laptops (mid-2013 models) with Haswell processors, which continued this legendary family, went on sale. These models traditionally received an unofficial addition to the name Mid 2013, which makes them easy to distinguish from previous models.

Many experts rightly believe that the first MacBook Air, launched in January 2008, is the progenitor of all modern Ultrabooks and that the design of this laptop formed the basis of the specification for Ultrabooks. And although formally MacBook Air laptops do not belong to the category of ultrabooks (and why do they need this formality), they embody the entire ideology of ultrabooks. Uncompromisingly stylish, super-thin, lightweight, high-quality, productive and with long battery life - this is how you can characterize the MacBook Air line of laptops.

In general, laptops, tablets, smartphones and Apple computers are their own special world. These devices are full of fans who simply do not recognize anything other than Apple and do not buy these devices because they have some kind of super performance or super functionality. In terms of performance, Apple laptops are difficult to compete with Windows laptops, and in terms of functionality and cost, they are simply inferior to them. However, Apple laptops are extremely popular and people buy them simply because they are Apple. At the same time, everything else is secondary. It’s just that Apple is a lifestyle, it’s an image, it’s a whole infrastructure of devices compatible with each other.

However, enough hymns of praise for Apple. Today we have a very specific laptop on our agenda.

Model range and configuration

So, in June 2013, Apple introduced updated models of the 11- and 13-inch MacBook Air laptops with the Mac OS X 10.8.4 operating system. Actually, the difference between the MacBook Air laptops of last year and this year lies precisely in their hardware configuration.

The MacBook Air Mid 2013 is powered by a 22nm fourth-generation Intel Core processor (codenamed Haswell). The laptop is equipped with a dual-core processor with a nominal clock frequency of 1.3 GHz, which can be increased to 2.6 GHz in Turbo Boost mode. The L3 cache size is 3MB and the TDP of this processor is 15W. In addition, the new MacBook Air laptops can be equipped with a more powerful dual-core processor with a clock frequency of 1.7 GHz (Turbo Boost frequency up to 3.3 GHz) and 4 MB L3 cache.

The fourth generation Intel Core processors integrate the Intel HD Graphics 5000 graphics core, which is used as a video card in the laptop.

MacBook Air has 4GB installed random access memory DDR3L-1600. Moreover, the memory is soldered on the board (that is, it cannot be replaced), but, nevertheless, it operates in dual-channel mode, which is important when using a graphics core integrated into the processor. We also note that MacBook Air laptops can optionally be equipped with 8 GB of memory.

IN new MacBooks Air also uses new, more powerful SSD drives. Laptops can be equipped with either 128 GB drives or 256 GB and 512 GB drives. Moreover, instead of the traditional SATA interface, the PCI Express x2 interface is used to connect drives (the connection interface uses two PCI Express 2.0 lines), which allows for a throughput of up to 1000 MB/s. Naturally, the SSD drives in the MacBook Air are non-standard and can only be replaced with similar ones.

Using high-speed flash memory as a storage device allowed developers to achieve amazingly fast recovery of the laptop from sleep and minimize boot time.

Note that the standard configuration of the 13-inch model with an Intel Core i5 processor, 4 GB of RAM and a 128 GB drive is called MD760, and the configuration with a 256 GB drive is called MD761. Similarly, the 11-inch configuration with an Intel Core i5 processor, 4 GB of RAM and a 128 GB drive is called MD711, and the configuration with a 256 GB drive is called MD712.

Another innovation in MacBook Air laptops is a new dual-band (2.4 and 5 MHz) wireless communication module based on the Broadcom BCM4360 chip, supporting 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac standards. Let us recall that the 802.11ac standard provides for the possibility of using from 2 to 8 spatial communication channels with a width of 20, 40, 80 or 160 MHz. And the maximum theoretical speed per one 160 MHz channel is 866 Mbit/s.

The Broadcom BCM4360 chip can only use three 80 MHz spatial channels, resulting in a maximum throughput of 1.3 Gbps.

However, the MacBook Air has only two antennas, which allows the formation of two spatial communication channels and, accordingly, the maximum speed is no more than 866 Mbit/s, which, nevertheless, is still a very high speed.

In addition to the WiFi module, the MacBook Air laptop also has a Bluetooth 4.0 module.

We also add that there is a webcam (720p), located centrally above the screen, and built-in stereo speakers.

Equipment

The 13-inch MacBook Air laptop has standard equipment for Apple laptops. It comes in a massive box without a handle. The overall dimensions of the box are 360 ​​x 265 x 70 mm, and its weight is 2.2 kg.

Inside the packaging box, in addition to the laptop itself, there is a MagSafe 2 charger (45 W), an extension cord for the charger, and two booklets with operating instructions and, of course, Apple stickers. That is, the package includes only everything you need, but without additional bonuses.

Appearance

The design of MacBook Air laptops has remained unchanged for many years (there are only minor changes that are invisible to the eye). The body of the 2013 models is indistinguishable from the body of the 2012 models, and they, in turn, are no different from previous models. In general, the design of MacBook Air laptops is their business card. Everyone has already become accustomed to this design, and if you change it, it will no longer be a MacBook Air. And there is no point in changing something that is done well and enjoys deserved popularity.

However, despite the fact that the design of the MacBook Air remains unchanged, paying tribute to tradition, we will try to describe it. So, the MacBook Air case is all-metal (aluminum) and has a noble silver color. On the lid of the laptop there is a traditional Apple logo, which is highlighted when the laptop is turned on.

And of course, the main distinguishing feature of MacBook Air laptops is their unprecedentedly thin body. In the 11- and 13-inch models of 2013, it ranges from 0.3 to 1.7 cm. Note that the thickness of the case has not changed compared to the 2012 models. The width of the 13-inch model is 32.5 cm and the depth is 22.7 cm. The laptop weighs only 1.35 kg.

Well, such characteristics in terms of thickness and weight can be taken as a standard. The interior design of the MacBook Air laptop is made to match the exterior. The screen frame, like the entire body, is made of aluminum. Likewise, the surface framing the keyboard and touchpad is also metal.

Keyboard and trackpad

It is probably no exaggeration to say that MacBook Air laptops (as well as other Apple laptops) use one of the best keyboards and one of the best touchpads available today.

Island-type keyboard with increased distance between keys. The surface under the keyboard is uniform with the rest of the surface, but slightly recessed. That is, holes are simply cut into the surface of the case for each button on the keyboard.

The keyboard keys have adjustable backlighting, which is convenient when typing in the dark.

The top row of keys traditionally has two functions: either traditional F1-F12, or laptop control functions (brightness, sound, key backlight level, etc.), one set works directly, the second - in combination with the Fn function key. The rightmost button in this row is responsible for turning on/off the laptop.

Well, traditionally, Apple laptops use a typewriter keyboard layout, which takes some getting used to (especially if you are used to touch typing).

In general, typing on this keyboard is very convenient. It doesn’t flex at all, the keys don’t make an unpleasant clicking sound when typing, the key travel is slightly spring-loaded and has easy press retention.

The trackpad in the MacBook Air laptop supports multi-touch function and has a size of 10.5 x 7.5 cm, which is quite enough for comfortable work. The sensitivity of the trackpad is not only satisfactory, but can also serve as an example to follow. Well, in passing, we note that the trackpads in the new MacBook Air laptops are exactly the same as in the 2012 models.

Connectors

As for the connectors in the new MacBook Air models, they have not changed compared to the 2012 models. There are two USB 3.0 ports (one on the left and one on the right), Apple's traditional Thunderbolt port, a combined Apple microphone/headphone/headset port, and an SDXC memory card reader.

As before, there is no RJ-45 network port (only wireless interface). But if a network port is absolutely necessary, then you can use the appropriate adapter for a USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt port, which is purchased separately.

Screen

The 13-inch MacBook Air laptop has an LED-backlit LCD screen with a resolution of 1440x900 pixels. Exact size The screen is 287x180 mm (diagonal size 13.3 inches). Actually, the screen itself has not changed compared to the previous model. It has a glossy finish and is not touch sensitive.

A detailed test of the screen of the 13-inch Apple MacBook Air (MD760) laptop was carried out by Alexey Kudryavtsev, editor of the “Projectors and TV” section. We present his expertise.

The front surface of the screen is covered, apparently, with a plastic, but relatively scratch-resistant plate with a mirror-smooth surface, which has some oleophobic (grease-repellent) properties. There is an anti-glare filter, and it is so effective that even direct reflection of bright light sources practically does not interfere with work. We did not detect any doubling of objects reflected on the screen. Note that all hardware tests were conducted on the native operating system and with color management disabled.

With manual brightness control, its maximum value was 350 cd/m2, with half brightness adjustment - 65 cd/m2, with minimum brightness control the backlight turns off completely, and in the first adjustment step from the minimum position the brightness is 5.4 cd/m2 . As a result, at maximum brightness in bright daylight (taking into account what was said above about the anti-glare filter), the screen remains readable, and in complete darkness the screen brightness can be reduced to a comfortable level. There is automatic brightness adjustment based on the light sensor (it is located to the left of the peephole front camera). In complete darkness, the auto-brightness function reduces the brightness to 18 cd/m2 (it is dark, but the text can be read), in an artificially lit office, the brightness is set to 350 cd/m2 (this is the maximum), in a very bright environment (corresponding to lighting on a clear day outdoors, but without direct sunlight) - for some reason the brightness drops to 340 cd/m2, and when moving back to office conditions, the brightness drops to 325 cd/m2. That is, automatic brightness adjustment does not quite adequately respond to external conditions - in the dark it is too dim, and in a not very bright environment the brightness immediately increases to the maximum value. At lower brightness, there is virtually no backlight modulation (up to 100 kHz), so no flicker is visible.

This MacBook Air model uses a TN-type matrix, but despite this, the screen has good viewing angles without inverting shades and without a large color shift when the gaze is deviated horizontally, but when the gaze is deviated downwards, dark shades are inverted, and when deviated upwards, light shades are inverted. When viewed from a perpendicular perspective, black field uniformity is very good - there are only faint hints of black field brightening in a few places close to the edge of the screen. The response time for the black-white-black transition is 19 ms (15 ms on + 4 ms off). The transition between halftones 25% and 75% (according to the numerical value of the color) and back takes a total of 47 ms. The matrix clearly cannot boast of high speed. The contrast is good - about 900:1. A gamma curve constructed using 32 points revealed a slight dip in the shadows (the shade 8, 8, 8 is still indistinguishable in brightness from black), but the shades are clearly distinguishable in the highlights. The power function fit exponent is 2.46, which is higher than the standard value of 2.2, so overall images on this screen will appear darker. In this case, the real gamma curve coincides well with the power-law dependence:

The color gamut is noticeably narrower than sRGB:

Apparently, the matrix’s light filters mix the components with each other. The spectra confirm this:

This technique allows you to increase the brightness of the screen with the same energy consumption for the backlight, but the colors lose their saturation (remember that most digital images - illustrations, photographs, videos and films - are optimized for display on screens with sRGB coverage or very close to it) . The balance in color temperature is good - shades of gray have a color temperature close to 6500 K, which varies little over the entire relevant part of the gray scale. The deviation from the blackbody spectrum (delta E) does not exceed 7 units, which can be considered an acceptable value for a consumer device. (Dark areas of the gray scale can be ignored, since color balance there is not very important, and the error in measuring color characteristics at low brightness is large.)

The matrix type is TN, with all the ensuing consequences, the color gamut is narrow, as a result, it is difficult to recommend using this laptop for professional work with color, however, the screen is bright, glossy and has a very good anti-glare filter, so working with a MacBook Air in different conditions much nicer and more comfortable than the vast majority of laptops.

Battery and runtime

The nominal capacity of the battery is 7548 mAh. Of course, battery capacity itself is not an indicator. And only the combination of battery capacity with average power consumption allows us to estimate the battery life of a laptop. And in terms of battery life, the 13-inch MacBook Air Mid 2013 has a lot to be proud of. According to the manufacturer, the 13-inch MacBook Air Mid 2013 with an Intel Core i5-4250U processor allows for up to 12 hours of battery life in wireless connection to the Internet and up to 10 hours of video playback via iTunes. Well, in Standby mode the laptop will last up to 30 days. Today, such indicators are unprecedentedly high.

We conducted our own testing of the battery life of the MacBook Air Mid 2013 laptop. It turned out that at maximum screen brightness, a Full HD movie downloaded from the App Store can be viewed through iTunes for 9 hours 6 minutes when the laptop is running on battery power. Actually, this result fully corresponds to what the manufacturer claims.

Testing

Compared to Windows systems, there are a very limited number of benchmarks for Mac OS based systems. However, we fundamentally did not install the Windows operating system on the MacBook Air for testing, because we believe that using Apple laptops with the Windows operating system is not correct.

We will check the performance of the processor, RAM and storage of the 13-inch MacBook Air Mid 2013 laptop using the popular benchmarks Geekbench 2, and.

In Geekbench 2, which measures CPU and RAM performance, the laptop scored 6783 points. This is an average result, due to the fact that the processor here is a dual-core Intel Core i5 with a low clock frequency. For example, we note that in the same test, a 13-inch MacBook Pro Retina laptop based on a dual-core Intel Core i5-3210M processor (clock frequency 2.5 GHz, maximum frequency in TurboBoost mode 3.1 GHz) with 8 GB of DDR3-1600 memory scores 7440 points (operating version Mac systems OS X 10.8.2). Still, in terms of performance, the new Haswell processors have a rather modest advantage over Ivy Bridge, which can only be revealed at the same processor frequencies. Well, there are no tests yet that could use the new instruction set of Haswell processors.

In the comprehensive benchmark Novabench, the picture was generally repeated. The MacBook Air scored 587 points in this test.

And the result of the MacBook Pro Retina laptop was 713 points

A comparison of the results shows that the only test in which the MacBook Air beats the MacBook Pro Retina is the Graphic test. Actually, there is nothing surprising in this. The Intel HD Graphics 5000 graphics core in the Intel Core i5-4250U processor is superior in performance to the Intel HD Graphics 4000 core integrated into the Intel Core i5-3210M core.

The next benchmark is the synthetic rendering test Cinebench 11.5 from MAXON. Rendering can be done using either the CPU or GPU (OpenGL). It is clear that when rendering is done using the CPU, the MacBook Pro Retina laptop with a more powerful processor outperforms the MacBook Air laptop (2.82 pts versus 2.42 pts). But in rendering using the graphics core, the advantage is on the side of the MacBook Air laptop (21.82 fps versus 16.89 fps).

Well, the last test is the popular Blackmagic Disk Speed ​​Test, which measures the performance of the drive.

The results of this test are truly impressive. No modern SATA 6 Gb/s SSD is capable of providing read speeds of 730 MB/s. And the write speed of almost 320 MB/s is very high by today's standards.

In a word, the performance of the flash drive in the MacBook Air Mid 2013 laptop is currently record high and noticeably ahead of all other solutions.

conclusions

MacBook Air is not the only line of Apple laptops. There is also the well-known 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pro series and the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pro Retina series. And if MacBook Pro Retina laptops are not affordable for everyone, then MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops are more mass-produced solutions.

The updated models of MacBook Air laptops compare favorably in configuration with previous models. High-speed flash drive, modern processor, support wireless standard 802.11ac, unprecedented long battery life, stylish design and low weight make these laptop models an indispensable assistant for users who are used to having laptops always at hand.

The 13-inch Apple MacBook Air Mid 2013 certainly deserves our editorial Original Design award.

Apple MacBook Air Mid 2013 laptop provided for testing by online store

Replacing the battery, performing calibration, optimizing the energy consumption of your MacBook, which will be discussed in this article, can be done in our service centers:

Apple laptops are known to have amazing battery life - an average of 7 to 9 hours of usage and a fantastic 30 days of standby time. But users always want more. This is probably why one of the most popular questions related to work MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, is the question of the battery capabilities of Apple computers - how to increase battery life and battery life in MacBook.

In this review article, we will try to explain this issue as succinctly and clearly as possible and, in addition, give some useful recommendations that may be useful to you in the daily use of Apple laptops. For convenience, we have divided the material into several thematic blocks, each of which answers a specific question about the operation of the MacBook Pro or MacBook Air battery. So, let's start in order...

1. How many charging cycles does MacBook Pro/MacBook Air support?

Unfortunately, it is impossible to give an exact answer to this question. However, according to Apple's official website, the MacBook Pro or MacBook Air's built-in battery should last up to 1,000 full charge cycles before battery capacity may begin to deplete, and batteries in new Macs have a lifespan of up to 5 years.

But ultimately, of course, both the number of charge cycles and battery life depend on many individual factors of laptop use for each specific user:

• Laptop charging mode- how often the MacBook is connected to the charger and how long it stays connected to it while fully charged;
• Laptop mode- do you use applications that use all the technical resources of the computer (which, in turn, affects the intensity of battery discharge), or do you use mainly programs from the everyday list (browser, mail, office applications);
• Laptop operating conditions- here, first of all, we mean external operating conditions: temperature environment and air humidity. We will talk about the optimal indicators of these characteristics recommended by Apple below.

It is these main factors that determine how long your MacBook’s battery will last without connecting to a charger and how long this battery can last in principle.

2. How to increase battery life of MacBook Pro/MacBook Air?

To increase the battery life of your MacBook Pro or MacBook Air during everyday computer use, you should follow a few simple, but at the same time very useful tips.

Disabling Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, geolocation

Wireless network interfaces on modern computers continue to operate in the background, even when you are not using them. Therefore, if you are working on the screen of your MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, but are not using an Internet connection via Wi-Fi or connecting to third-party devices via Bluetooth, it is better to turn them off. This can be done in the top menu bar of OS X, or in the corresponding operating system settings items.

Disabling peripheral devices

Powering any peripheral devices (be it a USB modem, flash drive or external hard drive) connected to the computer puts additional strain on the MacBook's battery and affects the overall battery life. Accordingly, everything external devices, connected to the laptop, it is better to disconnect it if they are not in use. Also, if your MacBook has a built-in SuperDrive, remove the drive if you are not currently working with it. This can add 20 minutes to an hour of extra offline time for your computer.

Adjusting screen brightness

The bright backlight of the MacBook Pro or MacBook Air display can significantly reduce the battery life of Apple laptops. To optimize energy consumption, we recommend turning on automatic brightness adjustment in the OS X operating system settings, which, using the built-in light sensor, will automatically make the screen brightness comfortable for working in different lighting conditions.

Don’t forget that you can adjust the brightness yourself using the function keys on the keyboard of your MacBook. So, for example, lowering the screen brightness when the battery charge is low can extend its operation by 10-30 minutes, and you will have time to do what you need to do or at least save the necessary files if the battery charge has already become critically low. The same, by the way, applies to the built-in keyboard backlight, if your laptop has it: the lower the brightness, the longer the Mac works.

Built-in OS X settings (Power Saver, App Nap)

On the panel "Energy Saving" In the standard OS X settings, you can configure some computer power consumption parameters that directly affect its battery life. For example, using the energy saving settings menu, you can configure the computer's idle time, after which its screen will turn off and the built-in drive will be put into sleep mode.

Starting with OS X Mavericks, operating system allows you to monitor applications whose operation consumes a large amount of computer resources, including energy consumption of the built-in battery. You can view information about such programs running on your computer in the top menu of OS X (battery icon), or in the “Energy” menu of the built-in diagnostic application “System Monitoring”.

In addition to this, in latest version OS X Yosemite present Built-in App Nap feature helps save energy when working with multiple applications simultaneously. The system detects when an application is completely hidden or not in use. Then, if the program is not performing any background tasks (downloading files, playing music, etc.), the App Nap feature slows down its speed. As soon as you return to the application, it will instantly start working at full speed. This technology can significantly reduce the use of computer resources by applications running in the background, and this, in turn, significantly optimizes and increases the battery life of your MacBook.

Apple recommends periodically monitoring the availability of system updates for your operating system, because... Periodically, updates are released for different MacBook models that can help optimize the power consumption of a particular computer model.

Closing unused applications

Many users, when finishing working with an application, click on the close button in the upper right corner of the program window as usual. After this, the application seems to close, but in fact, in most cases, it is the program window that closes, and the program itself remains running in the background. The consequence of this is the use of RAM and processor resources, which inevitably leads to more intensive consumption of the Mac's battery.

Try to keep open only those applications that you are working with at the moment, and close all closed (minimized) applications completely by calling the context menu on the application icon:

Optimizing your web browser

Many modern sites use a variety of multimedia content on their pages (animated screensavers, Flash banners, videos) and complex scripts, the processing of which uses RAM and CPU resources. An increase in the load on the main hardware of the computer inevitably entails an increased consumption of battery power.

Therefore, when working with browsers (whether it is built into OS X Safari, or any third-party browser: Opera, Chrome or Firefox), try to close unnecessary tabs and windows, because Even inactive background tabs can use up significant resources on your computer. We also advise you to pay attention to the popular browser extension called AdBlock, the main function of which is to block Flash banners and interactive advertising content. This can have an extremely positive effect on the battery life of a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air if you spend a lot of time working with websites.

3. Correct charging cycles for everyday use and long-term storage

Apple highly recommends Fully charge your MacBook battery the first time you turn it on devices. Then, when you continue to use your computer, we advise you to adhere to certain battery charge cycles. Firstly, do not keep your MacBook connected to the power adapter after the battery is fully charged. This can lead to so-called “stagnation” of electrons inside the battery and subsequent deterioration in its performance.

Secondly, try Adhere to a strict MacBook battery charging regimen. The ideal option would be to use the laptop in standalone mode and discharge the battery to 5-10% without intermediate connections of the power adapter. Of course, in modern life it is very difficult to maintain such a computer maintenance regimen, but we still recommend striving for this. This schedule will maximize the number of charge cycles for your MacBook's battery while maintaining its full capacity, which will ultimately have a positive effect on the overall battery life.

If circumstances are such that you do not know whether you will be able to use your MacBook for a long period of time, Apple experts recommend placing the laptop in storage. In this case, two conditions must be met. First - The battery charge at the time of disconnection before long-term storage should be 50-60%. This is due to the fact that if a laptop's battery is completely discharged for a long time, it may go into a deep discharge state and stop charging. If, on the contrary, the battery is 100% charged, then after a long time, while the laptop is not in use, the battery may lose some of its capacity, which will directly affect the battery life. Second condition - temperature control, in which you can store and use Apple laptops.

Comfortable temperature

The operating temperature of any laptop (be it MacBook Pro, MacBook Air or conventional Sony Vaio) is an indicator on which the stability of the laptop’s functioning, the duration of the computer’s battery life and the potential service life of the battery built into it directly depend.

Apple allows storage of its devices at temperatures from –25º C to +45º C, but it is not recommended to directly use the laptop if the temperature is below –10º C or above +35º C. Although these limits are not very comfortable when it comes to the impact on operating time and the lifespan of the MacBook's built-in battery. The most comfortable temperature for using a laptop is as close to room temperature as possible, approximately 22º C.

Using quality accessories

Try to charge your MacBook only using original power adapters, as... Using copies of chargers from manufacturers that have not been certified by Apple, under certain circumstances, can lead to a wide variety of consequences: from reducing the capacity of the built-in battery to failure of the MagSafe connector or inoperability of the entire laptop. MacBook Pro or MacBook Air are very worthy representatives of modern mobile computers, and therefore their maintenance should also be treated with dignity.

4. MacBook Pro/MacBook Air battery calibration

Despite the fact that Apple claims that modern MacBook Pro and MacBook Air do not need battery calibration, many users of Apple laptops have seen from their own experience that this procedure can have a positive effect on the operation of the built-in battery, increasing battery life and service life.

Procedure MacBook battery calibration simple enough:

• Fully charge your laptop battery (the MagSafe power adapter light should be green and OS X should detect that the battery is fully charged).
• Without disconnecting the power adapter, use the computer for 2 - 2.5 hours. As a last resort, you can simply leave the MacBook connected to the charger during this time.
• Then disconnect the charger and try to completely discharge the battery (until it itself goes into sleep mode/turns off due to a critically low charge level). After this, leave your MacBook uncharged for several hours.
• Fully charge the battery without interrupting the charging process (do not remove the MagSafe power adapter until the battery is fully charged).

If you need help from our specialists, please choose a service center that is convenient for you and call us!

5. When does a MacBook Pro/MacBook Air battery need to be replaced?

The proprietary Apple OS X operating system, installed on any MacBook Pro and MacBook Air computer, has a number of built-in functions for diagnosing battery parameters. There are also a number of interesting applications from third-party developers that allow you to analyze the performance and wear of the battery. Many of these apps can be easily found in the Mac App Store.

Accordingly, both the built-in capabilities of OS X and third-party software solutions allow the user to get real-time information about how the computer's battery is performing. This information can help the user determine whether the battery requires maintenance or not yet.

• The “Normal” status means that the battery is functioning normally.
• “End of Life” status - the battery can still work, but retains its charge worse than new, or has already lost part of its built-in capacity.
• A "Replacement Required" or "Service Required" status indicates that the battery most likely requires service and should be contacted for service.

We can replace your MacBook pro battery with a new one faster than most service centers and usually cheaper. Please choose a service center convenient for you:

At the end of the article, we note that following most of all the tips presented in it will help extend the battery life of your MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, and your computer’s battery will last much longer. If you have already encountered the problem of rapid battery drain and think that you need to

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Apple has firmly established itself as a successful laptop developer. And yet, the company's engineers cannot work miracles - they largely depend on component manufacturers, primarily on Intel. After all, it was thanks to new chips with low heat dissipation - Intel Sandy Bridge, then Ivy Bridge and finally Haswell - that Apple developers, as well as other laptop manufacturers, were able to create thin laptops ( in fact, Apple had thin laptops before - the first Air dates back to 2008, and it had a Core 2 Duo, but the fan in it howled incessantly, and it got so hot that it was hard to hold it on your lap. — approx. ed. ).

The fact is that it is the cooling system that determines the minimum thickness of the laptop: the thinner and smaller the radiator, the smaller the laptop will be. Due to the fact that the thermal package of mobile Intel processors Haswell, installed in last year's Retina, was reduced by 7 W relative to the appetites of Ivy Bridge, Apple engineers managed to reduce the thickness of the 13-inch Retina case and abandon the use of a second turbine in the cooling system. In the updated Intel Haswell Refresh processors (at least in those used by Apple), the thermal package remained at the same level - 28 W - so the new MacBook had no opportunity to lose weight.

Most likely, we will see a global and more interesting update of MacBooks either at the end of this year or at the beginning of next, because that’s when Intel should finally introduce Intel Broadwell processors. These chips will be produced based on the new 14 nm process technology, which will further reduce heat dissipation. Who knows what Apple designers will be able to achieve with such a serious “weapon”? However, for now we will have to return from heaven to earth: no matter what the wizards from Cupertino prepare for us in the future, at the moment we are only dealing with a slight update of the old model.

⇡ Technical specifications

As we have already said, the new Mac has not changed at all in appearance. The case, keyboard, touchpad and connectors remained the same as before - and did not change their location even a millimeter. Here, Apple engineers did everything right - they didn’t change much in vain successful design Apple laptop. Although few could refuse a third USB 3.0 connector...

The new 13-inch Retina MacBooks are available in three main versions. They differ from each other in storage capacity and, quite a bit, in processor clock speeds. The minimum amount of RAM is now the same - 8 GB. The 4 GB version of the laptop has disappeared from sale - and rightly so, for such a high screen resolution, 4 GB is not enough.

In addition, in the Apple online store you can configure your own laptop model, but it will cost much more than ready-made solutions, and Apple will not allow you to go wild with customization. Among the severe “hardware” modifications (in addition to replacing the processor), only an increase in RAM to 16 GB is available, and for perfectionists the possibility of replacing the Russian-language keyboard with an international, English one is left. As for increasing the SSD capacity, you can expand it to 1 TB only on the most expensive version of the laptop.

This is exactly what we got into our test laboratory - the most advanced version of the Apple MacBook Pro With Retina Display Mid 2014, which did not undergo any additional customization. Let's take a look at her specifications and compare it with last year's model.

Judging by the specifications, apart from the central processor, nothing has changed in the hardware part. This is understandable - after all, this update to Macs appeared only thanks to the release of new Intel processors from the Haswell Refresh line, one of which is installed inside our test subject. In the older version, it is an Intel Core i5-4308U with a clock frequency of 2.8 GHz, which can rise to 3.3 GHz in TurboBoost mode. Its L3 cache size is 3 MB, and its TDP is 28 W. Judging by the specifications, the new Mac should be faster than the old one, but we will find out from the tests how great the increase in power will be.

As we wrote above, our experimental device has 8 GB of RAM, and it is DDR3L-1600. The memory is soldered onto the motherboard, so you won’t be able to expand it after purchase.

The graphics component is still the responsibility of the processor, or rather, the Intel Iris Graphics 5100 graphics core built into it. Last year’s laptop had exactly the same graphics - there’s nothing interesting here.

The volume of our test subject's solid-state drive was 512 GB. When ordering this configuration, as we have already said, you can take advantage of “Apple customization” and expand the storage capacity to 1 TB. True, for the drive alone you will have to pay an additional 22 thousand rubles. In other modifications, the SSD capacity can be 128 or 256 GB.

The battery capacity remains unchanged and is 71.8 Wh (6600 mAh, 11.4 V). The power of the included power supply is still 60 W (16.5 V, 3.65 A).

As before, Apple laptops continue to cost more than their Windows counterparts. Thus, the cheapest version of the 13-inch “Retina” costs 56,990 rubles, and the most advanced - 79,990. More stuffed “custom” versions, of course, are even more expensive. For example, if you try to choose the most expensive of the three available modifications of MacBooks, then install the most powerful processor(dual-core Intel Core i7 with a frequency of 3 GHz), 16 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD drive, then the price of the laptop will increase one and a half times and reach 120,000 rubles.

But some categories of buyers have the opportunity to save. Apple provides an additional discount for university students and their parents, as well as for employees of educational institutions. As a result, the most affordable 13-inch “Retina” can be bought for 53,570 rubles, and the most expensive - for 75,190 rubles.

⇡ Internal structure

As before, the bottom of the laptop is secured with 10 screws with a proprietary Pentalobe slot. However, suitable screwdrivers can be found on sale for a long time, and their price is not so high.

As we already wrote, the new MacBook differs from the old one only in the processor. But even after disassembling the laptop, you won’t be able to notice this difference - the silicon heart of the laptop is reliably hidden from view using the cooling system.

Theoretically, the user can change the SSD themselves. However, there are two caveats. Firstly, such actions will lead to loss of warranty. Secondly, finding such a drive on sale will not be very easy, and its price can be quite impressive.