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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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
My 12" iBook rocks as well. Less power, less sexy, but I EASILY get 5 hours of batt. life and it was considerably cheaper than the powerbook. Runs cooler as well.
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).
I once watched "The Thin Red Line" DVD on a cross-country airplane trip, so I know the PowerBook gets at least three hours from the battery even with the optical drive, the backlight, and the sound running. Of course I had the wireless devices disabled and the CPU speed set to the minimum.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
Many times I've been with some people in the hallway of a convention, and someone needs a CD duplicated, or wants to swipe some MP3s, or whatever. Normally it's the people with Apple laptops who get to do this chore, because 1) ripping and burning CDs and DVDs actually works under MacOS, and 2) everybody else left their optical drive at home. I even duplicated some guy's WinXP install CD the other day, because he had the ISO but needed to boot the CD. I wrote "Made with a Mac" on the face of the CD ;)
IBM also won't give you a DVD burner, and you don't get an optical drive of any kind unless you are lugging around the Ultra(Heavy)Base docking station. Dell's 12" has only external optical drives, unpowered FireWire ports, and again no DVI port.
Also good luck getting Linux to run right with the Intel Pro(tected source code) Wireless LAN and the Intel Extreme(ly proprietary) Graphics adapter.
So I have to say, after shopping the competition, the Apple laptops are unique.
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.
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 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.
> IBM also won't give you a DVD burner, and you don't get an optical drive of any kind unless you are lugging around the Ultra(Heavy)Base docking station.
False, they also have a small USB 2.0 combo drive, which draws power from the USB port. The X40 and the combo drive together are still smaller and weight less than the 12" PB.
As you said yourself, everyone has different requirements. If you need a 12" laptop with powered Firewire, built-in optical drive, good 3D accelleration, dvi port, and trackpad, the Apple is your only choice. If you need one with gigabit ethernet, irda, cardbus, sd card reader, 7 hour battery life, vga port without dongles, keyboard light, trackpoint, Apple has nothing to offer. The PB suits your needs, the Thinkpad suits mine. Let's leave it at that, OK?
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.
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 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 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