General Battery Life Comparison: M11x vs. M15x vs. M17x

so what are the real world battery life results between the alienware family of notebooks, how do they generally fare?

looking for test results with discrete gpu disabled vs. enabled and browsing vs. gaming for level comparison...

 

I get about 35-45 minutes on my M17x. That's w/descrete on, full power to everything. Only good enough in case the power goes out. Otherwise, I'll switch to the integrated chip and get about 2 hours.

I'd say battery wise, the M11x should win...

 

BUH HAHAHA! Your a funny guy! (or Girl)

I think I might of Got an hour on my M17x running full power (or as much as it will go on battery) now If i milk the battery (turn everything wayyy down), I can get around 3 hours.

m11x destroys all in this.

 

I've been averaging around 6.5-7 hours with the IGP (very rough estimate)...

the couple of times I've run with discrete for an extended amount of time - right around 2.5-3 hours.

M11x BTW..

 

I should note that these are with "balanced" profiles - with the alien FX turned on...

I imagine if I go to power saver with the IGP - tweak the settings .. I could easily get around 8-9 hours or more with the IGP....

 

a good 2 hours browsing the internet, running msn... power saver mode and screen and a normal low setting (screen is way to bright normally)

with high power mode it last about an hour..

M15X 9cell

 

not looking for a "winner" so to speak, we know that would be the M11x on basics, lol.

trying to garner real world information for consideration as to how each is performing in general.

 

Who buys alienware (15x/17x) for battery life lol

 

My M17x lasts around 2 and a half hours with just basic office tasks on it (reading a document,typing, browsing a site there and now, wifi enabled all the time, alienzone off, and brightness set to almost half) - using the 9400m card and balanced power plan. Everest reads a 7.6% wear on the battery.

 

The other day I forgot to put on my surge resist cable and booted up my M17x at around 6pm. Then around 10pm it totally switched off. So it was on battery for that long.

Don't know how the hell it managed that one, I was gaming for a bit with the max performance setting on as well.

 

Speaking of wear, (since its kind of related to battery life) The M17x doesn't get alot of cycling on the battery. Nor does it get drained a lot. Whats the best way to leave the battery? I try to deplete the battery every so often but most of the time when im on it im plugged in anyhow.

 

Since I don't trust the battery disable feature too much I tend to disable the charging at around 98, 99% just to see it telling me not charging. I also use the battery once every 2 or 3 days, but never to the point it drains completly. Once every 2 weeks I use it down to 5-6% and then do a full charge. Dunno if it's right, but it's what I've done with all my laptops and battery has been good on all of them

 

My M11x has only gotten down to 60% battery so far(I'm almost always plugged in) and it said it had 5 1/2 hours remaining then. Which seems like a lot but it took me about 4 hours or so to get it there. I was just browsing the web mainly but I block flash, etc so nothing CPU heavy. Not maxed brightness but around 60%, no OC and obviously IGP. I mainly was reading with the screen not doing anything except displaying text in the same spot for extended periods of time.

 

m11x:
Taking notes in class with brightness on one bar and occasional email check (wifi off after that) and pretty tight power saving features, but never let it go to sleep, I can get 9 hours.

Web-surfing and playing mp3's and screen up three bars I get 5 hours.

Running discrete graphics and playing Oblivion and screen up to one less bar I got 2:15. Oh and turned wifi off before playing.