Is the 900p screen gonna use up more battery?

It says the battery life is up to 6 hours is that including the higher res screen?

 

I think ill be lucky to get 4 1/2 -5 hours of battery web browsing with my setup.

 

Damn, you went all out on your setup. I just got the most basic one + bluetooth and the better screen.

 

No. Power consumption of the two display choices should be basically identical. Resolution doesn't typically have an impact on power consumption.

 

i think when they say up to, then generally do everything they can to maximize battery life except the very minimum for it to be considered "typical".. running on igp, lowest screen brightness, maybe browsing, probably not even using wifi.. so hopefully 5 hours is more achievable on a regular basis..

this review i read said it was close to 3hrs of video playback (doesn't specify any settings though)
Alienware M14x (Core i7 2630M Processor 2GHz, 4GB RAM) Review - Notebooks - CNET Asia

 

I think you will be just as happy with your rig

 

Anything to back this up? It'd be great if it's true, but it's news to me.

Then again, I suppose it's the CCFLs/LEDs using most of the power... Interesting... Think I'll have a look into this...

 

Just my experience with many different monitors and LCD panels. I've never noticed any correllation between resolution and power consumption. By far the biggest factor for a panel's power consumption is always size (in square inches not pixels), distantly followed by the underlying technology, backlighting, etc...

If you can find some documentation regarding this, I think it would be interesting. Though it could be tough to find accurate comparisons since panels of the same size, technology, and generation are usually the same resolution as well (they are all sourced from only a few manufacturers after all).

After reading my reply again I should probably clarify as well. I am talking strictly about the LCD panel, and not about any additional power that the GPU may need to use in order to fill the additional pixels in the 900p display (there would obviously be a difference there, especially during gaming).

 

From looking around, I can tell you off-hand that no-one has done anything worthwhile investigating this. It looks like what you're saying is true though, from various posts in various places, the general concencus seems to be that the battery drain would mainly come from the lighting technology behind the panel than the panel itself.

 

You could take a laptop with a 900p or 1080p screen, run battery test at the native res, then one at 720p. I think that would tell if theres a difference in battery life between screen resolutions.

 

I thought of that, but would that really be the same? Wouldn't that sort of be like a software test versus a hardware test? I'm really not too familiar with the inner-workings of LCD panels, so I can't say.

 

No it wouldn't, because you'd be running at a non-native resolution which introduces other variables. Plus, the GPU would be working harder at 900p than 768p as well, consuming more power.

The question is whether two otherwise-identical panels of different native resolutions have similar power consumption. Just the panels, not the whole laptops.

You really can't test it with a laptop since the GPU power consumption difference throws it all off. You'd need to use two LCD monitors or televisions for this comparison so you can isolate only the display's power consumption.

 

Theoretically though, the GPU will be working harder to power the higher res. I still can't imagine it impacting battery life more than 20-30 minutes.

 

No idea. to be completely honest.

 

You really aren't going to get 6 hours of battery, that is literally just leaving the laptop sitting there on minimum brightness, maxed out power saving settings, and everything that can be turned off, switched off (such as WiFi).

You'll get around 4-5 hours of web browsing on WiFi.

 

This. When you look at a manufacturers battery life estimates, always assume that actual battery life is between 2/3 and 3/4 of that under normal use.

To answer the question, under normal use it shouldn't make much, if any, difference.