Who's got the best battery life?

Stuh505

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 15, 2004
Messages
488
So who's got a laptop with great battery life? To keep things fair, I'm talking about running off a typical sized 6 cell battery with 55-60 Wh. I'm shooting for about 10 hrs but I'm curious what other people are getting, and with that processor combination, etc.
 
M90 17"
Core2 Duo 2.4Ghz
Quadro FX2500M
4gb DDR2 667
160gb 7200 rpm drive
9cell battery

1.75hours tops...
:)
_________________
M4300 15.4"
Core2 Duo 2.33Ghz
Quadro 360m
2gb DDR2 667
160gb 7200 rpm drive
9cell battery

4.5Hours
(with the 6 cell D-bay battery, 15 cells total, 6-7 hours)
 
Here's my question,



What are you going to be using the lappy for/ what are you currently using it for?


Type of usage will determine the battery life. If your shooting for the most battery life, your best bet is to go with something not so powerful but enough for your needs. Ultra portables are another option as they tend to be designed from the ground up with battery life in mind. Your extended batts out there tend to add weight and size to your lappy, so if your fine with that and just want as much juice, than you could do that. There are many ultra low voltage CPU laptops you can look into that will satisfy you. eNjOy
 
Here's my question,
What are you going to be using the lappy for/ what are you currently using it for?
Type of usage will determine the battery life. If your shooting for the most battery life, your best bet is to go with something not so powerful but enough for your needs. Ultra portables are another option as they tend to be designed from the ground up with battery life in mind. Your extended batts out there tend to add weight and size to your lappy, so if your fine with that and just want as much juice, than you could do that. There are many ultra low voltage CPU laptops you can look into that will satisfy you. eNjOy

Well personally I want an ultra-mobile notebook. My philosophy is I'd rather have something small, lightweight, and long-lasting that I can take anywhere without being a burden or having to worry about power outlets....than a battery hogging half-hearted attempt at a "portable desktop."

With that in mind, I turned my focus to watts. A standard 6 cell battery is going to produce about 55-60 Wh and that means what I want to do is impossible using the current trend of C2D's that can suck up to 35W. I turned my attention to the U1500 which seems to me the best processor for this purpose; it is the highest performing processor at the current lowest of 5.5W (this will be surpassed in the next couple years unfortunately for me). However, it seems thats what we have to live with for now.

There aren't many laptops running this processor at all. Very little options, and unfortunately no barebones that I was able to find. I find a pretty sweet deal on the fujitsu B6220.

I believe this has got speestep built in and my rough estimate is that the average draw is going to be about 0.7W from the processor alone. Then I put in a 30 GB SSD drive for just 0.4w. 12.1" XGA TFT monitor which takes as much as 4.3w ..but running it dimmer should be able to reduce that to maybe 2.26W (40% brightness?). 1w for wifi, then the integrated GMA 950 which I think takes up to 7w. the memory draw is less than 1w. I';m not sure about the accuracy of that 7w claim. Clearly it is the major competitor for power in my calculations and it does worry me because it would limit my battery life to about 5.5 hours...but if i could get an integrated card in the 1w range on average, my battery would last 10-11 hours. I'm not sure if the 7w thing is a peak, or average.
 
You should google Nano Wire Technology being designed to extend battery life to a whole nother level. 2008 is a big year for the mobile market and that new tech is try to get pushed out as soon as possible. As for the processor you mentioned, not sure if that a Intel based chip are not, but have you also looked into Via C7-D processors? I know that there known for not being the best performer's but the C7 is a leap of improvements. Research to see if you can find a laptop with that series of CPU. It will handle Word processing, internet use just great. Those C7 are known for being extremely energy efficient. Intel this year for the mobile market(Mostly Ultra Portables) will be releasing their new line of Processors named Silverthorne that are made with a 45nm process and are a tad smaller than a penny. Those will be geared for the mobile user that would like exactly what your looking for, Low voltage/great performance. These are slated mostly for UMPC market, you know very small handhelds with a punch, but I'm sure they'll head there way into Ultra portable laptops as well. Look out for that. Just search those and others to see if you can find some more answers and ultimately decide if you would be happy with what is offered currently or if the wait would be worth it. Hope you find what your looking for. eNjOy

Cat
 
The longest quoted time I've heard (or, as a Thinkpad fanboy, chose to remember) is many many many hours (something like seven) for the Lenovo Thinkpad X60s. Lenovo claims seven hours with the extended (eight-cell, sticks out an inch) battery; tests show that it's pretty much possible under minimal power conditions. I would only assume that the X61s maintains such run times, seeing as how they're very similar machines.
 
The Panasonic W7 is a sub notebook with a 10 hour ratted battery(real world I've seen rated at above 6). 10 hours is a big goal but a lot of 14 inch notebooks like the dell d630 can hit over 5 with the extended battery. Remove the optical drive and throw a battery in it's place and you'd prob get close to 8.

Sony has a notebook called the G2 which has a rated battery life of like 12.5 hours so with real world you should hit around your 10 but it is expensive as hell.
 
Adding to this, the Lenovo Thinkpad X61s is supposed to get around 11 hours (with power settings really turned down) with the 8 cell battery and the extended life battery. With just the 8-cell, it's supposedly 8 hours. In real world, this will probably mean 6 - 9 hours depending on what battery configuration you get.

The X61s is a 12 inch notebook, and was designed from the ground up to be a low power notebook (uses the ULV C2D CPUs and has other power saving features, apparently).

I use an X61t, and with power settings near minimal, I can get 5+ hours on the 8 cell. I'll probably pick up the extended life secondary battery in the future for long trips and plane rides.
 
with my old Thinkpad X40 I would pull 7-8 hours of the extended battery.

I wish I didn't sell it...I've got a shitty M1210 now.
 
My yet to be delivered Sager NP9262 with Q6600/4GB/2x160GB drives in RAID 0/8800M GTX will have less than an hour on the battery, under load. Do I win!? :eek: I think I can get 10hours or so...on a diesel generator...before the fuel runs out...lol
 
Catsonar, yes the U1500 is an Intel chip, it is their most efficient ULV chip, with a TDP of 5.5 W at peak draw (meaning that is usually draws a lot less).

In comparison, the L7500 processor on the ThinkPad X61s 17 W TDP...and a lot of the ThinkPad's are being sold with T series processors that have whopping 35W TDP. What you can get out of a 8 cell battery pack is pretty irrelevant, because you can always get ac longer life by throwing a larger battery. Stick with 6 cell 55-60 Wh for comparison. That means if you were to power ONLY the processor (no monitor, no motherboard, no hard drive, nothing else), but the processor was working the whole time, you would only last 3.3 hours!

The Silverthorne chip, when it comes out, will smoke everything else on the market, having a TDP lower than 1 W and faster processing than any of these other current ULV chips. Thats the power of 45 nm tech, I guess. I'm jealous already...but can I really wait for it? I think its going to be at least a year, maybe 2, before it hits the shelves.

As for the VIA C7-D, it is a piece of shit. 1.5-1.8 ghz, 400 mhzFSB, with a whipping 20 W TDP. The performance is approximately on par with Intel's U1500, but the power drain is nearly 4 times higher!
 
i got the sony tz laptop . standard battery last 6-7 hours.

its light wieght too. 11.1inch screen and less then 4 pounds.

if you lookign for the budget laptop

the tx model of sony is very cheap online and criglist. its the last gen sony 11.1inch laptop. standard battery for that is around 5 hours. see people selling high end tx for around $900
 
My 12" ThinkPad X60s got 10+ hours when it was new. With 66 battery cycles I get a solid 8 with wifi on.
 
M1330 and lat XT would both be at or beyond 10 hours with a standard + extended. PITA to carry a second bat but how often are you going to be running for 10 hours straight when 6 will do most of the time?
 
My T61 14.1" will do around 6-7hrs with Wifi on. Probably 8-9hrs with lowest screen brightness and Wifi off.

That is with the 7 Cell primary and the Ultrabay battery (takes the place of the optical drive).

Battery life is finicky though, the more you use the processor, screen brightness, wifi, HDD access, etc. will all drastically change the battery life. For max battery life you will want something with the special low power intel chips like the Thinkpad X series.
 
I"ve got an Asus W5Fm in my sig, i swapped out the T7200 and threw in a core solo T1200, becasue i was interested in battery life. WIth the T1200 running @ 1.5ghz i have it undervolted to 0.95v, the same voltage as it runs @ 1.0ghz. I"ve tweaked and disabled certain devices in the device manager. Using notebook hardware control i have the power usage down to ~9-10watts an hours. WIth the standard 6 cell, i can get around 4.5 hours, i have a 9 cell battery and can get 7.5 hours. This is with the screen at 50% brightness.

With any laptop you can usually get pretty good battery life you just have to go the extra mile with tweaking settings and you'll get rewarded with nice battery life.
 
Dell Vostro 1400
1.4ghz c2d
2gb ddr2 667
nvidia 8400m gs
6 cell battery
xp pro

3 to 3.5 hrs with wifi and brightness at 100% while browsing, chatting, fixing up my resume in microsoft word, music, watching movies. sometimes i hate having to go get my power brick and plug it in. thinking to get the bigger, heavier 9 cell battery.
 
Hey,


What that program again to undervolt your CPU? I remember using it once and I think I was able to add almost an hour on battery life in a 2D setting. I loved that program, just forgot what it was called. Anyone?
 
My X60s gets about 4-6 hours with the 6cell, and around 10 hours with the extended battery.

Remember, smaller screens = longer life.
 
Hey,


What that program again to undervolt your CPU? I remember using it once and I think I was able to add almost an hour on battery life in a 2D setting. I loved that program, just forgot what it was called. Anyone?



Notebook Hardware control, or RmClock, I prefer NHC
 
I"m lazy i find the interface a bit easier/quicker to use. They both do the exact same thing, it just comes down to personal preference. I originally started with Rmclock a few years ago (back when the Pentium-M was all the rage)
 
I think Panansonic Toughbook T5 has the longest battery life, 7 to 12 hours with a 10 hour average.
 
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