Lithium Polymer: 46% More Capacity, 0% More Weight

Today Apple is shipping lithium polymer batteries in all of its MacBook Pros. Only the original, white MacBook is offered with a removable battery. Most impressive are the capacities Apple is able to offer thanks to these new batteries.

The table below shows the old and new battery capacities:

  New Lithium Polymer Battery (Integrated)

Old Lithium Ion Battery (Removable)

Increase in Capacity
MacBook Pro 13-inch 58WHr 45WHr 29%
MacBook Pro 15-inch 73WHr 50WHr 46%
MacBook Pro 17-inch 95WHr 68WHr 40%

 

Now there was no 13” MacBook Pro before, so I’m comparing to the old aluminum 13” MacBook. Also, the 17” MacBook Pro was the first and only unibody 17” MacBook Pro so the old battery I’m comparing it to was the previous generation 17” MBP battery.


73Whr?!? Holy crap

The biggest winner is the 15” MacBook Pro, it gains a 46% increase in battery capacity with zero increase in size or weight. The new 15” MacBook Pro is the same size and weight (5.5lbs) as the previous model, it just has a 46% larger battery. Did I mention it’s cheaper too?

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  • Pirks - Saturday, June 13, 2009 - link

    C'mon man, how else winzealots could defend themselves against such a thorough and lubeless pwning by that famous fruity company? They know they lost it in a fair comparison so they try to squeeze in any old and slow Pentium era junk they can found, just to pretend to not losing a face. Hilarious! You guys keep posting here, keep the show running, gimme some atom or another shittyslow Wintel laptop, I love your lame excuses! :))) So much fun today... ahhhh...
  • BushLin - Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - link

    I have no loving affinity to any company... I like to buy good value, high performance parts, hence why I normally overlook Apple.
    If these rather expensive and well marketed machines could get even close to that kind of battery life under Windows I'd be impressed. Right now I just see some tests under a proprietary OS, a bunch of Fanboys with too much time on their hands who should be where they belong, in Starbucks, posing, rather than on a serious tech site.
  • Hacp - Saturday, June 13, 2009 - link

    Samsung's new drives with the new controlelsr, the same ones that are in the ocz summit and corsair p256 have a built in cleaning function when the drives are in an idle state. This makes worst case scenario performance a non factor in these drives.
  • iwodo - Sunday, June 14, 2009 - link

    If that is true even for the 128Gb SSD that apple offer then it would be a good deal from Apple.
  • misium - Saturday, June 13, 2009 - link

    Each time a Li-ion or polymer battery is charged its capacity decreases. Li-polymer batteries deteriorate even when they are not used - just by lying on the shelf.
    This explains why older laptops have lower battery time - their batteries are older.
    You should test the new laptop in a year or two to make a fair comparison.
    Also you could just put fresh batteries into the old laptops.
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Sunday, June 14, 2009 - link

    All of the laptops here used brand new batteries, with the exception of the 2006 Core Duo based MacBook Pro. I did test the 2006 notebook with a new battery and found an extra ~25 minutes of battery life I believe.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • peroni - Saturday, June 13, 2009 - link

    The new Acer timeline laptops based on Intel CULV processors claim a battery life of 8 hours, and that's when running vista!
    I bet with Win7 they could squeeze an extra hour out of it.
    The processor is only running at 1.4GHz but on the other hand they're very light (for the screen size)
    I'd love to see an Anandtech test on them.
  • JarredWalton - Monday, June 15, 2009 - link

    Already requested. Can't wait to see how it fares in our tests....
  • Johnmcl7 - Saturday, June 13, 2009 - link

    but then again why let niggling little things such as facts get in the way of a nice and tidy Apple marketting piece. What a load of nonsense this is from a supposedly reputable tech site right from the start:

    "Apple did some clever work on its own here."

    Total and utter nonsense, Apple have done no such clever work at all as it's all been done already. Many years ago Ericsson showed how polymer batteries could be used to reduce size in their super slim T28 and Apple are far from the first to do so for laptops. I expect the every day person on the street to get taken in by Apple's marketting but not a site like Anandtech, I'm also surprised that the battery no longer being removeable isn't really criticised as I think that's a really bad loss. Aside from not being able to use a second battery which is very handy for those who want good batterylife and there are single batteries out there that easily exceed these Macbooks but also if you have a failure you can easily swap it out for another.

    "There’s no other way to say this. If you care about battery life and portability at all, buy the new MacBook Pro. Go to the Apple store and buy one. While I only tested the 15” model, I’m guessing the 13” model should leave a similar lasting impression."

    Well I had to laugh at this point although I guess it's expecting too much by now to expect AT to have any clue about other laptops on the market. I'm currently typing this on a Sony laptop I bought back in 2005 which can last around eight hours on its normal battery and on its extended battery which is currently fitted it's around 12-13 hours putting these Macbooks to shame. As the battery is also removeable both together means the machine can last a long, long time away from the mains. Why someone would want a 15.4 inch Macbook (or even 13.3in) for batterylife and portability when there's other machines that are smaller, lighter and better batterylife I've no idea - the article reads as an advert for Apple and reading the conclusion you'd think AT were on a commission from them. It must be annoying for the likes of Sony though and others who bring genuine innovation to the market, get ignored then when Apple release the same technology a few years down the line they then get all the praise for it.
  • djuero - Saturday, July 4, 2009 - link

    Sure you're able to post links to comparable machines to prove that?

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