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Laptops with the Longest Battery Life?

Posted by Cliff on from the built-to-last dept.

Yi Ding asks: "Recently, I have been investigating laptops for clients, and the majority of the complaints about current laptops is battery life. Most laptops just don't have enough juice to even finish a single DVD or write an article for 4-5 hours in an internet cafe. Of course, one can lug around extra battery packs, but it's a pain and often defeats the purpose of having a laptop in the first place, portability. What have your experiences with battery life been and where can I find the longest lasting, reasonably robust, laptop?"

7 of 751 comments (clear)

  1. Trade off by erick99 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Until a more advanced battery technology comes along , battery life is going to be a trade between how long you want the computer to run between recharging and how many features (DVD, etc) you want available. Eventually, some new technology such as fuel cell will enable us to have our cake (lotsa features) and eat it too (very long battery life).

    Cheers!

    Erick

    --
    http://www.busyweather.com/
  2. Re:dell laptops by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Parent is overly broad. Laptops with P4s may indeed have short battery lives, but I generally get 6-7 hours out of my Dell laptop with a Pentium-M (and its a widescreen laptop at that).

  3. Dell 600m Centrino - 8 Hours by Carbonate · · Score: 3, Insightful

    My Dell can get about 8 hours of battery life under minimal load. Of course it does have a spare battery in the media bay.

  4. Really? Portability hampered by a battery? by switcha · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Of course, one can lug around extra battery packs, but it's a pain and often defeats the purpose of having a laptop in the first place, portability.

    Oh, come off it. The handful of ounces a battery weighs pales in comparison to most of the other accouterments a mobile fellow or gals carries around.

    Besides, for most laptops, two batteries worth will far outlast any "long-life" laptop's single charge life. I'm not saying it's the ultimate in convenience, but if long life is really, really important to you, get the machine you really want and will be productive on, and then cough up for another battery.

    --
    You know what? ... A little club soda *did* get that out!
  5. Re:dell laptops by dchamp · · Score: 3, Insightful

    My Dell i8500 will run for about 4 hours under "normal" desktop use running Linux, with an Orinico wireless card in it.
    As to the original post... you know they usually have AC power available at net cafe's, right?

  6. Use a laptop with Pentium M CPU by Mike+Rotch · · Score: 3, Insightful

    For the x86 side, use laptops with Pentium M cpus for the battery/perf. The whole Centrino marketing thing is based on using this cpu with other intel hardware to maximize battery life. I have a x1000 compaq with 15.4" screen and it has lasted a little over 4 hours. I think it could have gone a bit more if I employed more power saving features. I even watched FOTR on battery. I had the dvd ripped to the HD so the dvd drive was not it use. I am not sure if it would have lasted with constantly spinning the disc. But basically if you really wants lots of battery life, use laptops with smaller screens (10" or 12") and keep 'em dimmed. Also minimize the use of the HD.

    I also have iBook 12" and I have used it for over 5 hours on battery. I stopped using it after 5 hours so I am not sure how much more it would have gone for.

  7. Re:Apple iBook G4 by YetAnotherName · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Yeah, but MacOS X is Unix anyway; I've been able to do a lot of my Linux application development on MacOS X with few problems.

    Besides,
    autoconf
    is a wonderful tool.