Bought a laptop last week and the battery is brutal

Trhiggy83

As the title suggests i bought a laptop a two weeks ago (using it now) but the battery is shocking when plugged out. It said in the shop the battery life was 4 hours. To be honest i would be lucky to get an hour out of it.
Have i a leg to stand on,i think i do - False advertising and all that.

Now i know if you have a lot of programs on at once it would eat battery alright but i dont usually have much open.

The last laptop i had the battery was well better. If it said in the shop the battery was two hours i might understand but its not getting close to the 4 hours mark. Should i bring it back?

brownacid

Change the power setting to power saver and thats should get you a bit extra few mins or so

Trhiggy83

brownacid wrote: »

Change the power setting to power saver and thats should get you a bit extra few mins or so

Done that and still not happy to be honest. it said 4 hours in the shop.I would not have bought it if i knew the battery was so bad. When its fully charged it says it lasts 2hrs 13mins. But in reality it wont last the hour

Alanstrainor

What laptop is it?

When it says it will last 4 hours it means it will last 4 hours with the screen brightness at it's lowest setting, all wireless radios off (wifi, bluetooth), windows set to power saver. And you doing pretty much nothing on it.

yer man!

You could try upgrading the battery to a 9 cell, presuming you already have a 6 cell battery. this should give you far more time. I don't think you really can do anything if you bought it in a shop but you could call the manufacturer and explain. It could simply be a faulty battery. I've had a fair few laptops that said 4 hrs battery life and you would expect about 3 hrs when it's new. Converted to Mac now and get 10 hrs, I get 11.5 hrs when screen is set low and browsing at same time.

Trhiggy83

yer man! wrote: »

You could try upgrading the battery to a 9 cell, presuming you already have a 6 cell battery. this should give you far more time. I don't think you really can do anything if you bought it in a shop but you could call the manufacturer and explain. It could simply be a faulty battery. I've had a fair few laptops that said 4 hrs battery life and you would expect about 3 hrs when it's new. Converted to Mac now and get 10 hrs, I get 11.5 hrs when screen is set low and browsing at same time.

Ya only gettin above 2 hours , false advertising me thinks. I would not have bought it if i knew that. it definately said 4 hours battery life but even when fully charged its only above 2 hours. Ah well cant do much now, will keep the 9 cell idea in my head tho - cheers

PogMoThoin

Is it filled with bloat?
Right click on the taskbar, select task manager and tell us how many process are running in the bottom left corner.

Trhiggy83

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Is it filled with bloat?
Right click on the taskbar, select task manager and tell us how many process are running in the bottom left corner.

There is all the standard stuff running in the background but none of it is using any cpu or ram really, i have not added much only bought it a few weeks ago. The computer is not working very hard at all so it seems that the battery life is just rubbish. Just surfing now nothin else open. I reckon the battery life and was advertised as 4 as it would be easier to sell

ED E

Sorry, but you fell for a con that thousands fall for. 4HRs is maximum lifespan of a charge. As the others have said, thats with the CPU at minimum clock, drives spun down, wireless off, screen at minimum, speakers inactive. And, with a new pack charged and discharged correctly.

Technically, they've done nothing wrong. You cant expect to get much more than an hour without paying for a larger 9 cell pack.

Its sad to see people getting tricked on a daily basis, mainly by salesmen.

barochoc

Sorry but not lasting an hour is unacceptable!!!

What model is it?

If it's core 2 duo & 13-15" screen you should be getting at least 2 hours even with a 6 cell battery.

I had a Dell Latitude D610 for years. I rarely used it on battery power but when I did I easily got 2.5 hours of use & I could easily watch a 90-100 minute movie on a flight or when traveling.

That was a Pentium M which was nowhere near as efficient as todays processors.

I'm getting up to 3 hours on my Dell XPS 1210 with a 9 cell battery that's 3-4 years old. That has been used for a lot of mobile computing so I'd be gutted if I bought a new laptop that didn't give me at least 2-2.5 hours on a 6 cell battery when new.

Did you give it a good over night charge?

Normally batteries need a good over night charge to reach full capacity & generally they don't reach peak performance until at least 10-15 full charges.

That's my experience anyway & I'm very confident it's true. But by the sounds of it you're not going to see a dramatic increase in capacity with a few over night charges

Are you using a 3G dongle for your internet connection? This will typically reduce your battery charge usable time by 1/2 compared to not using the dongle.

Overheal

Considering its not 4 hours in the real world I'd get a refund from it.

x in the city

less than an hour is not acceptable imo

my M1730 monster gets about an hour and its over a year old.

I would take it back, it could be a refurb or seconds.

A brand spanking new battery should last well over an hour, what is the spec?

youcancallmeal

You really need to tell us what make and model the laptop is because 1.5/2 hours battery life out of a high powered gaming machine would not be unrealistic. Did you read any reviews on the laptop to see if its a known issue with that model?

Dr.Winston O'Boogie

I just bought an Acer Aspire 5551 and the battery lasts 2.5 hours, which is fine as it said that when purchasing. But how do I find out what cell the battery is? So I know what I could possibly upgrade to?