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What are other peoples experiences are with the battery life of the Apple Magic Trackpad using Ubuntu?

I think I've emptied included batteries after about two weeks usage for five days a week, eight hours a day. I don't know for sure because there's no battery level indicator, but I guess it's empty because it doesn't connect to the computer anymore.

Are there other people who use it as their main pointing device? How long do your batteries last? :-)

edit Dec. 2, 2010

Allright, now I always turn the trackpad off when not using it. The batteries lasted 5-6 weeks this way, much better than the initial two weeks.

2 Answers 2

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The included batteries lasted five weeks in my usage. The device has been on at least eight hours a day. I expect quality rechargeable batteries to last more. There seems to be no way to know if it's going into a reduced power mode when not in use, but it doesn't seem to.

If upon holding down the power button, the green light goes on, stays lit for a second and immediately goes off without blinking, that's an indication that the batteries are dead.

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    Thanks, my green light does exactly that. Did you ever turn yours off when not using it? By the way, the manual talks about an automatic sleep mode to conserve battery. But maybe it's driver dependent and thus doesn't work with Ubuntu, although I couldn't really imagine that.
    – pableu
    Oct 25, 2010 at 8:54
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    It ran continuously for eight hours; sometimes more. I'll investigate power saving further and edit my answer if I have new information.
    – mgunes
    Oct 25, 2010 at 9:01
  • Did you turn it off overnight? Because I certainly did not, maybe that's why my batter life is shorter.
    – pableu
    Oct 25, 2010 at 10:38
  • Yes, and that's probably why.
    – mgunes
    Oct 25, 2010 at 10:42
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There's no reason that using Ubuntu of instead Mac OS X (or Windows for that matter), should affect how long your batteries last. This is because the Magic Trackpage does not "run Ubuntu software" on the device itself.

However - two weeks seems very poor... there are people on the internet expressing dissappointment with four or six weeks. I imagine it depends on the batteries you use though.

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  • Thanks, I didn't mean to blame Ubuntu for the poor battery life. Maybe the included batteries were just from a bad batch.
    – pableu
    Oct 25, 2010 at 8:56
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    But the drivers can activate some kind of sleep mode or do a number of neat things to conserve battery life. Oct 25, 2010 at 10:06

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