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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?"
Are the ones that stay plugged into the wall.
My Toshiba Satellite A45-S121 gets 4-5 hours of battery life on dim backlight.
Beautiful OS, beautiful construction, loooooong battery life, light-weight... what else can one ask for?
That if you leave it in suspend the whole time, or bettery yet HIBERNATE...you can get it to last for days.
Cheers!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
iBook G4's have a very long battery life. I have one, and it lasts a lot longer than any PC laptop I've encountered.
My G4-800 iBook has lasted at least six hours, perhaps longer.
I'm a Linux user but Mac laptops are lovely, with excellent battery life. Too bad Airport Express (and power management?) isn't supported on Linux PPC.
I've got to say, my new 12" 1.33Ghz G4 PowerBook really has some great battery life. Well over 3.5 hours with "normal" usage, even with the screen brightness cranked up. I haven't done any DVD playback testing though. You can probably get improved battery life for DVD playback by ripping the DVD to your hard drive, so you're not spinning the optical drive that whole time...
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
Werent they the ones that touted the longest battery life? Of course, they specialize in Tablet PC's (which are pimp - get a motion m1400VA... so nice) Back to topic... yeah I think electrovaya had the longest claims (9 hours), and the longest life (7-8 hours that people have been getting) - Awperator
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.
One man's long life is goign to be another man's power hog. It all depends on how you use the machine and how you set up the power saving features.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
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!
Geek-scented Glade plug-ins have shown to be rather unpopular, especially in a public place.
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.
Not to sound like an Intel commercial, but that's largely what Intel's Centrino platform is all about. It's designed as a mix of processor and chipset that allows the system to maximize battery life.
I have a Fujitsu Lifebook 5010 that reliably gets me just under 5 hours battery life, maybe more like 4 hours if I have wireless enabled (and there's a hardware switch on the case). Something like playing a DVD is going to suck even more battery, because of the need to spin the drive motor, but I'd wager I have enough juice for that most times.
Centrino isn't a blindingly huge advantage, though. Fujitsu makes a non-Centrino version of the same laptop that comes with 802.11g, and I understand it only gets marginally shorter battery life, and that's all from anecdotal accounts. Centrino does a good job, but a big reason this model's battery lasts so long is because it's 900MHz (so doesn't run as hot, so doesn't need as much energy to run the fan) and it only has a 10 inch screen.
Breakfast served all day!
Centrino-based ThinkPads have great battery lives... six hours and upwards, depending on usage patterns. The Centrino chipset makes a big difference in power consumption!
How appropriate. You fight like a cow.
My 15" iBook G4 regularly gets 7 hours+ worth of battery life if I'm not playing any DVDs (backlight dim, and in auto-power conservation mode). If I'm playing a DVDs or doing heavy disk I/O then I usualy get 5 hours. Maybe 6.
Look for a laptop with Centrino processor/mobo/wifi. The processor is either an older Banias (still good) or a great Dothan core. These are Intel processors designed for laptops, so they put power consumption at a minimum. You can also choose a slower spinning hard drive for longer battery life, and the cost of some performance.
Other than that things like forcing the laptop to stay in ultra-conservative power miser mode, or getting a laptop based on a low power processor (Pentium M, Transmeta Crusoe, etc) can help. Also, if you are willing to pay for it, see if there is an extra battery for the laptop you are buying that has a higher capacity than the one that ships standard. Replace the stock with the high capacity, and you've got more battery life.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
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).
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
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.
I have one of these for work.
I can watch TWO DVD movies on a plane with it on a single charge.
When I bring it home and work on it in the evening, it can sit on until I go to bed with its WiFi card on full power and not run out.
I typically get 5h+
but my laptop seriously rocks.
I work as a developer and requested an IBM R50p with 1Gb RAM, which is plenty to handle Tomcat + IntelliJ + Firefox + Outlook + other crud.
On the occasions where I have to go to meetings all day, I've got 8+ hours out of the battery (taking notes, wireless network etc). Admittedly, this is the extended battery (hangs a little out of the back), but with a DVD writer, 60Gb and IBM sturdiness, its definitely the best laptop I've used.
Mine regularly lasts close to 6 hours on the battery, at least while doing non-intensive tasks and keeping the brightness at a reasonable level. Not to mention it never heats up to an unbearable level, even on a summer day; I've heard its fan come on maybe 5 or 6 times since I've owned it, and its usually been when I had it on a heat conductive surface (like a blanket or thick carpet).
Nothing beats Apple laptops in my opinion, especially in the low-end. Something comparable to a 12" iBook in size, weight, and battery life, ends up costing $1500 in the PC world (at least when I checked out the Thinkpads).
Okay, so everyone's got great battery life with their laptop has posted in. What I'd like to know is: which laptop's have the shortest battery life? Was battery life a major factor in your laptop purchase? How many people here use their laptop as their desktop (i.e. plugged into the wall socket regularly)?
The PC Weenies: 11 Years of Online Tech 'Too
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?
I get 5-6 hours out of my ibook if I turn the screen brightness down. If it's doing nothing but playing mp3's with the screen blanked, it lasts for about 10.
Apple laptops aren't much, if any, more expensive than a PC laptop, and the battery life issue alone makes it worth the investment. Toss Virtual PC on it if you need windows stuff, but I've found that it does everything that my PC did, only better. Except for one thing, Visio VSD files. Hassle the Omni group to add VSD functionality. They already support VSX, but Visio saves in VSD by default, so you won't be able to read/edit pre-existing visio docs.
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Yes, Intel Centrino is more then just marketing hype, all Centrino laptops have longer battery life then typical laptops.
linkage
The catch however, is Centrino laptops are also underperformers compared to regular laptops.
My Fujitsu Lifebook P-5020 claims to have 11 hours of battery life, but I've never gotten more than 8. Of course, this is with the built in wireless on, so I'm sure if I turned off the wireless and dimmed the screen I'd get more.
It's a small laptop with a slower chip (~1Ghz), which is exactly what I was looking for. The laptop almost fits in a 1-gallon freezer bag, but remains fully useful. I carry it around in the front pocket of my backpack or a thin leather valise. It plays DVDs just fine, burns CDs just quickly enough, has excellent wireless antennae, and the long battery life and portable size make it fit my needs for a non-desktop-replacement portable computing machine. Apparently you can get it to dual boot your favorite distro, but I haven't had the motivation to tackle that yet.
Incidentally, I bought the machine from Portable One in San Jose, and I recommend them- good customer service and good selection, with reasonable prices.
(Celui que tient la peur de devinir nuage)
My old Titanium powerbook stood up to the DVD test. Right before the second Matrix movie came out I sat down and tested the length of the battery. I put the powerbook in "DVD Playback" mode in the Energy Saving system panel - which means "NO ENERGY SAVING" (brightness all the way up, no spinning down of hard drives). Anyways, the Titanium 15" powerbook was able to display the whole movie beginning to end. Which was great for waiting in line.
;)
My newer Aluminum 15" (firewire 800) Powerbook can NOT do this. I can NOT play an entire DVD from start to finish with sound and everything running at full tilt. It's possible with some fudging of settings I could get a whole movie to work -but I haven't tried.
I imagine the two biggest consumers of power during DVD playback are
1) DVD drive spinning
- this could probably be mitigated by ripping the movie into quicktime and playing off your hard drive (which I believe consumes less power than the DVD drive)
2)Powering the speakers.
- Someone clue me in here, but I imagine you'd save power if you plugged your headphones in rather than powering the onboard speaker. And you'd get a better experience plugging the sound output into an entertainment center too.
Joseph Elwell.
I'm sort of toying with selling my Dell "desktop replacement" laptop, as that didn't work out (I wound up getting a desktop anyway) and instead going for a lightweight. The Sony Picturebooks with 600-800 MHz transmeta processors are commonly available on eBay for $1000. you only need 700 MHz to play DVDs smoothly, and a friend has one of these with a little add-on battery pack that snaps onto the bottom and gives him 6+ hours. It raises the keyboard into a nice typing angle and the whole thing is still well under 2 KG.
A 700 MHz or so machine with a nice screen, that was very small, would be nice. I've got a Dell monster now and I never take it anywhere because it's too damn heavy.
Hello All
:)
My 0.02, try and find a laptop that can take dual battery packs. That should allow plenty of time to do just about anything
You could go with an external battery pack but all of the ones I've seen are pretty pricey and add to the overall bulk of a laptop.
Good Luck
Yeah, batteries do that. Over the course of two years of heavy daily use, my Powerbook's useful life went from 5 hours to about 45 minutes. I bought a new battery and it's back up to 5 hours again.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
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?
A lot of sub notebooks, which are designed for travel (i.e. Sony VAIOs, ASUS M5000 and S5000, some Fujitsus) have reasonable battery life, but also have the option of using higher capacity batteries without increasing the overall weight or size beyond an ordinary (usually they remain much less). These larger batteries boost the life of the laptop into the 8-12 hour range (or even more if you look at those powered by Crusoe or other exotic power savers).
lifebooks especially the P-Series have great battery life. I was able to watch a DVD and a half on a single charge, and with the Bay battery and the extended battery you've got at least 12 hours.
I write code.
Got a Thinkpad R40 for about a year now, Pentium-M 1.3Ghz, 512MB RAM. Battery life is about 5-6 hours with battery saving options (screen blanker, turning off hard drive etc). ;)
If I let it go into standby mode when not in use I never need the AC adapter the whole day. Just wonderful to go into a meeting and watch everyone else with their P4-2.6Ghz laptops (more like "portables") scramble for the one power socket in the room while I just sit back and smile
I sometimes watch DVDs on battery power while relaxing on my bed, doesn't really drain the battery as well. Imho there is no way around a Pentium-M if you want serious processing power combined with extended battery life.
My Toshiba 450CDT, a 1997 model Pentium-I 75mhz, running linux in console mode, has a 10 hour battery life.
The only thing I've ever seen do any better, except maybe a PDA, was a Tandy Model 100.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
There are several things you can do to get more out of your battery.
If you have a variable speed CPU like the AMD Ahtlon XP-M then you can use SpeedSwitchXP (or similar) to force it to run at the slowest speed. For the tasks you mention 500 MHz is plenty of power.
Rip your DVD to the HDD and play it from there.
Disable WiFi and Bluetooth even if they aren't actually connected. They will continously ping looking for other devices, which does hurt battery life. Most notebooks have a keyboard shortcut to disable it.
One of the most useful utils is MobileMeter. This app will show the amount of current your notebook is currently consuming, so you can play with various settings (like backlight intensity) and see the exact affect it has on power consumption.
Finally, what's wrong with using a spare battery? Modern notebooks can hibernate and resume in less than a minute, which is trivial downtime to swap batteries.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
The complaints you cite are slightly behind the curve. Brand new Pentium-M based laptops claim to, and really do, have amazing battery life times. My friend has a Compaq based P-M laptop with a 15" widescreen and his battery lasts 6 hours. One with a smaller screen should run even longer. Beware Pentium-4 mobiles which do suck down battery power; get the 'M' series.
Funny thing is... Slashdot was more reliable back in the days when they were handing out those 4-digit IDs. I don't think I've ever seen it is flaky as it's been the past couple of weeks... with the possible exception of the times they were hit by DoS attacks. I'd assume that this was another attack, except for that recent upgrade. New servers? New version of Slash? Sounds like good old-fashioned upgraditis to me.
I saw an ad for this in an airline magazine, and have entertained the thought of getting one. I have no idea how well it works.
There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
Most "features" of a laptop don't really consume extra power if not utilized. For instance the DVD drive only consumes power if it's actually spinning (and mencoder can can take care of that).
To reduce the power consumption of the cpu simply put it to the lowest frequency (speedstep). 600MHz is generally enough to play a movie (DVD or .avi). As far as the LCD screen is concerned - simply reduce its brightness.
I'd personally recommend the Centrino processor line - good perfomance at reasonable power levels (as opposed to Pentium 4 Mobile).
The Raven
When new, easily 8+ hours at work (networking, email, docs and code) with a battery in both bays. Until one battery recently failed (6+ years old!) it still regularly gave 6 - 7 hours of effort. This is by far the best I've ever seen from a laptop.
One nice thing is that nowadays this approach is quite interoperable with PCs and Macs. Tools to convert to the 3M format have been available for decades and now tools to convert from 3M to a digital format are almost as ubiquitous. On the down side there are some claims that the 3M approach can harm the environment, after all, it does grow on trees. On the other hand a high proportion of discarded equipment can be recovered and processed for reuse.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
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.
My IBM X40 (it's a Pentium M, 1GHz) runs 7 hours on a charge of the 8-cell battery.
:)
Total weight is only 1.6kg with the battery, and the laptop is great for everything except graphics-intensive games. The downside is that there is no DVD drive except with a docking station, and it has only a 10.4" screen running 1024x768.
It suits me perfectly for a transatlantic flight though and plays DivX very well for several hours
-- As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong?
I use an IBM Thinkpad R40 1.3 GHz Pentium M with a 15" screen and I usually get 4-5 hours of use with near full screen brightness. If I use even lower battery settings, I can sqeeze 6 hours or more out of it with the wifi on. When watching DVDs with a screen brightness high enough for outdoor use, I can get through one 2hr movie and have a little time to spare. It is a little heavier at 5.6 pounds, but it has been a great little notebook.
I recently had to purchase a lightweight laptop for my boss. His requirements? That it be lightweight, long battery life, and have a few bells and whistles (DVD playback, wireless, etc.)
d se riesbean.do?series=P7
Well, we ended up getting this one:
http://webshop.fujitsupc.com/fpc/Ecommerce/buil
The Fujitsu 7000 series has a hell of a lot of bang for the buck and if you are interested in long battery life - it's hard to beat this. Fujitsu claims that the 7000 series can run for up to 11 HOURS on battery power. This is, of course, using the modular bay for a battery.
Nonetheless, it seems he's able to get over 5 hours on just the single stock battery for non-DVD use. Centrino-based laptops are very well designed and when used with the ultra-low voltage processors are unbeatable, IMHO.
Finding a dealer though... That's the REAL challenge...
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
The very best solution I've ever had for writing up all kinds of documents, taking meeting notes, and doing other basic things such as PIM, yet maintaining long battery life and low weight, is an HP Jornada 820 (WinCE). A real 8-10 hours on a full charge, a real, touch-typable keyboard (the only bug was a misplaced caps-lock key thanks to MS's strong-arming the initial H/PC keyboard layout), and a screen more than sufficient for writing draft and some final documents (640x480). Also meeting-friendly (no fan, true instant on, one click to turn off all sound, no scrounging for an outlet, no panic when the meeting takes longer than my battery). Anything smaller is not touch-typable and anything bigger might as well be a laptop. It can sync with a fully loaded laptop that stays at my office or hotel room, where I'd be more likely to watch a DVD anyway. Unfortunately, this form factor has not succeeded for a variety of reasons, an important one being that one must give up something significant to get really good battery life. Today, I'd probably pick a very small form factor notebook to retain a touch-type capability, and cut its other features to the bone (slow processor, minimal disk, RAM; no integral CD/DVD). Leave all the power in the desktop-replacement laptop that lives a less mobile life.
My T41p (T42 is out already) lasts 4-4.5 hours going full speed with the larger (9 cell) battery. With power management on (lower backlight, CPU throttling etc), it last cca 6 hours without problem. Should be more than enough for your needs. Another plus - the HW is completely Linux friendly, everything is supported and works.
Where do you find a job that only lasts 2 - 2 1/2 hours a day?
I had the same problem. The capacity is still in the battery but the smart controller in the battery gradually loses track of the zero level and reports less and less charge.
:-(
To fix it you need to run the battery _completely_ dry. Run it for as long as you can until it enters sleep because of perceived 0% charge. Then let it sleep (of course without a charger attached) until the battery is exhausted.
The problem is that since there really is plenty of charge in the battery it can sustain sleep for many days
Since the machine will turn off when the battery is exhausted be sure to close all running applications before setting it to sleep.
Once the machine turns off you can recharge the battery again and take advantage of the full capacity.
If you are electrically inclined I guess you could place a 1K resistor between + and - on the battery to drain it more quickly.
What I meant was some sort theoretical limit to a Nickel-Cadmium (or alike) battery. I was trying to make an analogy cause, you probably know, there is a limit (at least in thoery) to the speed "the best semiconductor transistor" can switch from one state to the other. Scientists are pushing the techonolgy to this limit until eventually we will have to switch to something else. So.. may be (chemical reaction batteries) as we know them have reached a limit already.
I own the Fujitsu P2110 - 866mhz Transmeta Crusoe + 512Mb ram, and 60Gb drive (updated).
I have the extended + modular batteries, each give over 7 battery life, and I managed to squeeze over 18 hours from light to average usage (with pcmcia powered down, battery management set to performance and screen brightness on just under medium).
The laptop itself is a little slow, but seems to be perfect for reading books, watching movies/dvds and programming (with distcc). High bitrate divx play perfect, and even certain games like warcraft3 can be made playable under wine. (ATI Rage Mobility 8mb, with accelerated gatos drivers).
Also great linux support, and works pretty much out of box with everything. Sound card has hardware mixing (amazing that nforce2 and many via chips dont). There is also an optical out to plug to your hifi at no loss of quality!
Overall, highly recommended laptop that I had for around 2 years now that can be gotten dirt cheap. Slight show of tear like headphone jack has bad contact now (only if you touch the plug though, so not dramatic). Cant see me replacing it anytime soon though.
There are newer transmeta based laptops as well, and if battery and portability is your goal, they beat centrinos in every possible way (centrino requiring 2-3 times more power, bigger heavier batteries to provide similar battery life at the gain of performance).
Anyway, just my opinion, yours might differ, but over 15 hour battery life impressive by any standard.
With the transmeta long-run utility set to max savings, low display brightnes and no wireless I was reading an e-book during a transatlantic flight and it still had a significant amount of spare juice in the battery at the end of the flight (well, it wasn't exactly the entire flight, I did power it down during takeoff and landing ':)
This machine doesn't have a dvd-drive so I can't comment on that (I guess I could get a decrypter and copy a movie to the hard disk but I haven't tried that)
They're very lightweight and you can find them on ebay at reasonable prices
Application startup performance is quite bad though :(
you have to realize that no matter what battery you get it seems that as they age the time they give you goes down, so at the end you always end up with solid 1-2 hours of usage. I'm not sure what the deal is with the Centrino based ones, but I think they'd do the same after few months of continuous usage.
If you want to watch a whole dvd, has anyone tried programs like dvd idle? It claims to optimize caching to minimize the many spin up/shut down cycles. It won't help with burning but for watching a movie, it looks like a no-brainer.
Just an opinion.
Battery life and system performence were my main criteria when searching (yeah, I know they can be in conflict!), and I am extremely happy with the ThinkPad. Even after a year, it continues to amaze me just how well IBM designed (and built) this machine.
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
I'm now on my 3rd PB 15" (still have 2nd) and I've always been amazed at the batteries. I even was able to get a higher capacity battery from Apple since they jacked up their battery to support a CPU speed bump. I've routinely been able to watch full length movies on DVD when flying cross country and squeeze in a bunch of work with maximum power saving practices (dim screen, etc). Another nice touch is the ability to check the battery strength while the computer is hibernating or off (button and LEDs on battery).
Recently I've also become a big fan of the Kensignton Universal Car/Air Adapter. You can also get a version that works for AC wall power too so you can leave the stock brick at home. The Car/Air one is super light and works with both Empower and cigarette lighter style jacks. I cannot tell you how valuable unlimited DVDs and games are when you need to pacify a kid who can no longer be amused by more preferable diversions. And of course it's always fun when 4 hours into your flight all the other laptop users are looking longingly at your super bright screen while theirs are pitch black.
Not only is this laptop so damn beautiful, but on the regular batteries, I can get over 5 hours. I bought it specifically for things like long plane flights so I can play nethack and kill time.
It has a killer sharp widescreen, and comes with basically everything you need.
With the larger battery, you can get 7-10 hours.
I was going to get the Dell 300m, until I found out that it doesn't come with a DVD player built-in. Who the hell wants to deal with a modular DVD player on a plane? Hell no!
I love the Sony TR3.
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.
I, too, must agree! I went with the other end of the spectrum - buying a 17" Powerbook. But in its class, it's completely unique too. I've had several buddies criticize my decision, saying "You're paying too much for too little CPU power!" and so forth, but where else can I go to get a 17" LCD panel in a laptop this thin and lightweight? Furthermore, who else offers the backlit keyboard feature, or the slot-loading DVD burner (no flimsy tray to break off)?
One of my good friends bought a high-end Sager "gaming laptop", arguing it was a much better value for his $ than my Powerbook 17" was for mine. Only 2 or 3 months later, he's already talking about getting rid of the Sager. Why? He says "The fans are too loud!" (Not only that, but its battery life is abysmal, it's "thick as a brick", and as he also complained about, the speakers are terrible in it too.)
On the plus side, the Sager uses a higher-end LCD 17" panel than my Powerbook does. (The rumors have it, Sager originally spec'd their laptops with the exact same panel Apple uses, but Apple outbid them and bought up all the supply for their Powerbooks. At that point, Sager just ordered the next model up from what Apple used.) It really does look beautiful - but a display alone doesn't make the laptop.
I have a new 1.5 GHz 15" PowerBook. It gets a consistent 4+ hours of life in "regular" use - that doesn't mean watching a DVD, but it does mean writing documents, surfing the net, checking my e-mail, and so on. It also gets that kind of life with both Bluetooth and AirPort Extreme live and kicking.
For power conservation, I let the processor cycle down as needed, and I spin down the HD after 5 minutes. I also have the brightness dialed back to about 70% when on battery - that's usually good enough for me. But that's all the steps i need to get over 4 hours. If I were a little more aggressive, I might be able to break 5.
Part of the difference I think is the newer PPC 7457 processors - I believe they're pretty light on the power consumption (I don't have the actual specs handy).
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I have one of Apple's PowerBook G3 (Firewire a.k.a. Pismo a.k.a 2000) models. It's been upgraded from 400 MHz to 900 MHz and from 64MB RAM to 512. It runs Panther pretty well...I wouldn't open my 1400-picture iPhoto library on it (that's what the G5 is for :) but it does great for random web browsing, word processing, etc. You're still mostly up to date technology-wise since this machine includes an internal Airport 802.11b slot, USB, FireWire, and 10/100 Ethernet.
The key to the Pismo is that it is the last PowerBook to include an additional bay which can hold the stock DVD-ROM drive or another battery (or various third-party fixed and removable drives). If you buy one of these machines used of course you shouldn't expect too much out of the battery included but you can always add one or two high capacity batteries. I have one that gives me 4-5 hours of careful use (no DVD watching) plus one original Apple battery that just gives me an hour. The only problem is weight - with two batteries installed the machine gets up to 8 or 9 pounds. But, working at a university with total WiFi coverage I find it quite worthwhile to bring everywhere I go on campus without having to pack the power adapter.
I've been using an Inspiron 300m for about 3 months now. I've got the extended battery, which ups the weight to about 3.2 lbs) and I can get ~8 hours using it for surfing and typing... ~6 hours playing DIVX movies at full brightness. If I want to play DVD movies, I pop it into the base which has an extra battery (this ups the weight to about 4 lbs) and I can get ~9 hours watching movies.
Blackrobe "The Original TechnoWeenie!"
I make it through 6 hour flights while watching movies constantly and still have enough left over to check my email when I get off the plane.
I use a Dell C600 (PIII-1000-Speedstep)
First I pack the ROM drive away and replace it with the second battery. I also carry a 3rd batt just in case. Second I also RIP my DVD's (DVDDecrypter) to the hard drive - spinning the harddrive takes far less juice than spinning a DVD. Lastly I use a hardware & user profile that has any extraneous devices, apps, utilities disabled.
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
Dell CPx, PIII, 500Mhz, 1024x768.
Two brand new 4460 mAh batteries, which are ~20 bigger than what the laptop shipped with years ago, yields over 11 hours of phun.
And for that, I can live with the low rez.
Toss in Gentoo, gcc 3.4.1, and compile everything with -O3, and you've got a snappy little machine, mang!
> on Linux there's no practical way to get the OS
/proc/sys/vm/bdflush and with hdparm you set the drive to spin down every 20 seconds or so and you are ready to go! /dev/null before playing oggs, helps a LOT!
> not to access the drive at least a few times per
> minute. It would be nice if there were.
Of course there is a way. It's called laptop_mode kernel patch and 2.6 kernel has it (also, the 2.4 kernel from fedora 1, has it). If you have that, then you mess a little with
I have an IBM T41 which runs for about 3 hours normally and for almost 4 hours if I spin the drive down with this way.
Also, cat *ogg >
My Dell Inspiron 8600 (with the centrino 1.7, 1920x1200 wuxga display, 80gb hdd) gets a good 7 hours of usage for things like surfing the internet/typing with the second battery installed in the modular bay and the display contrast all the way down.. not bad for such a monster of a laptop, considering its faster than most desktops.. with the dvd drive installed in place of the secondary battery, it'll play through a full movie and still have about an hour left..
"Make it idiot proof, and someone will make a better idiot."
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
> on Linux there's no practical way to get the OS
/proc/sys/vm/bdflush and with hdparm you set the drive to spin down every 20 seconds or so and you are ready to go!
/. crowd wonders why ordinary computer users won't run Linux as a desktop/laptop OS...
> not to access the drive at least a few times per
> minute. It would be nice if there were.
Of course there is a way. It's called laptop_mode kernel patch and 2.6 kernel has it (also, the 2.4 kernel from fedora 1, has it). If you have that, then you mess a little with
And the
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last