New Laptop Battery Life

eddiej

Hi all,

I need some advice I have read some of the threads here and hope I am giving enough info.

Basically buying new laptop, want to spend €600 absoulte max. The laptop is really to provide a second internet access point incl email to the desktop at home. Will play the odd game on it as well so dont want something too cheap or slow. Not mad into games so they wont be super cutting edge. have a Dell xps 420 as desktop.

Only other constraint is battery life will be using laptop away from home a fair bit and also on car journeys so I want max bat life, am I right in aiming for 15 inch screens to max bat life.

Thanks for any ideas

EJ

WIZE

I think the average battery life is 5 hrs but it can also depend what your doing on the laptop. watching DvDs will use up more. And also the setting on the laptop such as preformance will use up more

Alanstrainor

you'd be doing very well to get a full laptop ie not a netbook, that will get 5 hours battery life. I'd be thinking 3 hours would be the average for a 15 inch decent spec core 2 duo laptop.

Voodu Child

If you want a laptop that has good battery life, you should perhaps forget about the gaming requirement. Usually they are at opposite ends of the spectrum. For good battery life, you'd be looking at something with an integrated GPU rather than a powerful (and battery-consuming) dedicated GPU.

The Dell Studio 15.6 starts at €550, and has a LED-backlit screen as standard. That's going to be good for power consumption. Stick with the integrated GPU (intel gma4500), upgrade to the 9-cell battery, and that's about as good as you'll do with your budget. If you can afford, upgrade to the P8600, as it has a very low 25W TDP (compared to 35W of the cheaper options).

I can get 5-hrs web browsing out of a fairly power hungry M1530 (with 9-cell) so im sure 6hrs+ is doable with the Studio 15.6 as specced above.

WIZE

This is the spec from my laptop which I can get 5hr from

HP G70 17'' Laptop with Blueray
Intel Core 2 Duo T5800 @ 2.00GHz
3.00 Ram
32bit OS vista sp2 €580

eddiej

Voodu Child wrote: »

If you want a laptop that has good battery life, you should perhaps forget about the gaming requirement. Usually they are at opposite ends of the spectrum. For good battery life, you'd be looking at something with an integrated GPU rather than a powerful (and battery-consuming) dedicated GPU.

The Dell Studio 15.6 starts at €550, and has a LED-backlit screen as standard. That's going to be good for power consumption. Stick with the integrated GPU (intel gma4500), upgrade to the 9-cell battery, and that's about as good as you'll do with your budget. If you can afford, upgrade to the P8600, as it has a very low 25W TDP (compared to 35W of the cheaper options).

I can get 5-hrs web browsing out of a fairly power hungry M1530 (with 9-cell) so im sure 6hrs+ is doable with the Studio 15.6 as specced above.

Cheers Voodu,

Take the point re gaming but can you explain what a GPU and all that is i.e. what do I look for when I am looking at the machine, Is the p8600 a dell or a battery sorry if these are basic qs but you kinda lost me.

Thanks again
Eddie

Voodu Child

eddiej wrote: »

Cheers Voodu,

Take the point re gaming but can you explain what a GPU and all that is i.e. what do I look for when I am looking at the machine, Is the p8600 a dell or a battery sorry if these are basic qs but you kinda lost me.

Thanks again
Eddie

GPU = graphics processing unit. Different ones will use more or less power (ie will affect battery life). You'll want a powerful one for games, but it won't be good for battery life, as they draw a lot of power. An integrated one won't be good for games, but will be fine for everything else, and will help you get a longer battery life. The 4500HD (on the dell model i mentioned) is an integrated gpu, (and a actually a good one), will be fine for most things including HD video.

P8600 is the model of the processor. Look at the laptop I mentioned on Dells site (link), you can choose various processors (for a price).

9-cell is the battery size. Again, check the Dell website, you can choose different battery sizes depending on what you want.

darrenw5094

BVB wrote: »

This is the spec from my laptop which I can get 5hr from

HP G70 17'' Laptop with Blueray
Intel Core 2 Duo T5800 @ 2.00GHz
3.00 Ram
32bit OS vista sp2 €580

Slightly off topic here.....but i bought that same laptop brand new from PC World about 3 months ago and now she is dead as a doornail.
First the battery went, then the screen and finally the whole feckin' thing.

By the way....i don't remember getting 5 hours life from the battery.
Maybe i am wrong, but it seems a bit too much.

AlmightyCushion

darrenw5094 wrote: »

Slightly off topic here.....but i bought that same laptop brand new from PC World about 3 months ago and now she is dead as a doornail.
First the battery went, then the screen and finally the whole feckin' thing.

By the way....i don't remember getting 5 hours life from the battery.
Maybe i am wrong, but it seems a bit too much.

The one he has could have a higher capacity battery. If your laptop is dead then bring it into pc world.

Greenman

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

If your laptop is dead then bring it into pc world.

Read this for ammo http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055583972

Let us know what happens.

eddiej

Hey thanks for all replies,

Looks like battery life just wont be able to go much beyond 4hrs realistically thought by now things would have improved. Bought my last laptop in 2001 !!! and always got between 2-2.5 hrs out of it so thought things would have pushed on by now. I still will be doing lots of office work and net surfing e-mail so maybe this will improve bat life

Anyways how much RAM do people suggest. I know as much as you can afford but I dont really want to spend loads on something I dont need is 2GB the min I should go for or can 1GB perform the tasks I am talking about just as well.

Overheal

4GB and go with a 64-bit OS.

You can always get a power inverter for the car to charge the laptop with if youre really stuck for juice that way.