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Laptops with the Longest Battery Life?
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?"
My Toshiba Satellite A45-S121 gets 4-5 hours of battery life on dim backlight.
I have an IBM X31 and the standard battery. With the low power settings on (you're just writing an article, right?), wifi on, and the dock at home, it lasts just under 5 hours.
If you want to burn cd's, bring the base and put a batter in it and it'll last another 3 or so hours.
If you want ultra long battery life, get the super extended batter that clips onto the bottom, just like a base. It'll give you almost 9 hours!
This laptop is incredible. I highly suggest it for anyone who doesn't want to lug around a 6lb laptop.
I have a two year old battery in my Powerbook and it still lasts about 4.5 hours. The damn thing goes forever. Just keep the screen brightness down. Besides, they look pretty and all the girls in the coffee shops come up to you!
I've been very happy with my Thinkpad R40. It has a 1.4 GHz Pentium M. As long as I use low power settings I usually get about 6 hours of life. I've heard of better, but they're usually ultraportables with tiny screens.
One problem, you won't be gaming or doing anything really CPU intensive if you want to save power. On power conserving settings, the processor runs much slower than the normal speed and the screen is not as bright, but that's going to be the case for any laptop to get the battery life it claims.
You'd be surprised how easy it is to go to the 'net cafe owner behind the counter and ask politely if you can plug into that wall socket there...
Honestly it works. I work regularly in cafes for entire days. It just takes looking like a fool for a minute, asking permission, then pluging my stuff and setting up my "office" in front of everybody, I can stay there for the whole day. And also, if you go through enough cups of coffee, I guarantee you the owner won't ever ask you to get lost, because what he earns on you certainly outweighs what he loses in electricity.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I've routinely done cross-US flights playing MP3s the whole way.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
There's a few things I miss about my late, great Wallstreet Powerbook-- among them the superior keyboard-- but most of all, I miss the fact that you could swap out a drive for a second battery. With two fully charged batteries in there I could easier go for eight hours or more. It wouldn't make sense for the 12" models, but how about a second battery in the 15" or 17" Powerbooks? Yeah, you'd add a little weight, which for some reason is a huge taboo right now-- but the extra life would be well worth it.
I can't recommend the IBM Thinkpads too highly. They're not the cheapest laptops around, but they're really well-made. I have a T40 with an extended-life battery, and I can get nearly eight hours out of it if I'm careful (dim the screen, turn down the CPU clock, use Linux 2.6 laptop mode to keep the disk spun down as much as possible) and around six if I'm not (watching movies on DVD).
Beyond battery life, my T40 is built like a rock, a fact my head can attest to. I was in the passenger seat of my car a couple of months ago, with my T40 on my lap, when my wife fell asleep and went off the road, rolling the car four times starting at about 70 mph. The laptop bounced off my face, beating the hell out of it (my face, not the laptop) and was then ejected through the window. I'm not sure if the laptop broke the window or if it was already broken. The T40 was picked up from where it landed in the dirt about 100 feet from where the car stopped. Damage? Well, one of the USB ports was damaged (the one that had my mouse plugged into it -- we never found the mouse), the lid latch kind of sticks when you try to close the top, and the case has a couple of minor scratches.
I've had three previous Thinkpads, too, and they've all been excellent, well-built and well-designed machines. Some of the others didn't have great battery life, though.
IMO, if you want a really good x86-based laptop, buy a Thinkpad. If you want the best possible laptop, and don't need to run Windows, buy a Powerbook.
Disclosure: I work for IBM, and own IBM stock (and Apple stock, and Dell stock) but I don't think those facts affect my opinion. If you don't believe me, ask me about some other IBM products, like, say, Lotus Notes.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Man, I'm late with this one. By now since there's 568 responses, I hope it gets noticed. I'll be a weenie and post it to a top response.
.txt they should get a Psion 5mx. I've done plenty of research on this because that's what I need for my trip round the world. They run off AA batteries which last 20-30 hours.
If your clients are just looking for something to check email, web access and are willing to save in
But of course, it's not the newest and latest, and the screen is black and white. But if your clients are geeks, there is a linux version of it.
Good retailer of refurbished ones. Linux version.
If anyone buys one, please mention my name: Dave Smith. I'm riding a small motorcycle round the world and Paul at Psionflexi has been really helpful.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle