Battery Usage

Hi Pete,

I doubt that you will find any definitive information. I have seen some web articles about Core Duo and power consumption, but I was more confused after reading them.

I can share my personal experience with two recent laptop purchases though:

1) An Inspiron 630m with Pentium M 2 2GHz and 1G RAM, 100G 5400 hard drive, integrated graphics, Truebrite WXGA. Extended battery.

5400 hard drive, ATI Mobility Radeon X1300 (but I don't know how much RAM that has, and how it uses "hypermemory), Truebrite WSXGA. Extended battery.

On both I have them set so that on battery power the display shuts off after 1 minute and the hard disks after 3 minutes. I also dim the screens about 3 notches. With the Truebrite display starting out brighter, they can be dimmed more. I don't know whether that translates into any real gains though, I may be comparing apples and oranges...

I also have a quicklaunch shortcut to the blank screen saver that I sometimes use to shut the display off sooner than 1 minute, and I set the background color of the desktop on each laptop to be black, reasoning that because the desktop doesn't need to be blue for example, that it might save if black means less power is needed.

I am amazed at the battery life that I can get from the 630m running basic productivity tasks. I can go through a 2 hour meeting and still have over 80% left on the battery. I tend to take a lot of notes, but even still the laptop is idle a lot.

I am also amazed at the battery life that I can get from the E1505 running the same kinds of tasks. After a 2 hour meeting instead of 80%, the battery might be at 63% compared to the 630m which is great considering the "dedicated" (hypermemory) video card, Core Duo processor, and larger screen.

Still, in both cases, my expectations were exceeded (gad, I must have gotten too much of Tom Peters in the 80's!).

When I first saw the new design of the Inspirons I was disappointed because in the past I liked having the modular bay for another battery. My Inspiron 4000 4100's were getting 6 hours long before that became more common, and then I had D505, 630m's, and 8600's that used the (same) modular batteries.

I can take either computer portably and not have to worry about battery life based on my usage.

When I ordered these computers, instead of just upgrading the normal battery to extended, I kept the normal battery and got an additional extended. That way I have a normal battery as a backup if I should ever need it for only around $30.

I recommend reading some of the CNET reviews of the system(s) you are considering. There are quite a few user reviews out now for the E1505, some of which have integrated video, some which have dedicated, and some of which are Core Solo. The Inspiron 6000 user reviews could give you an idea of a Pentium M 15.4", and the XPS 140 630m reviews could give you an idea of the Pentium M 14".

Journey