G1s hard drive issue

I was recently asking one of my coworkers about the difference between a 5400RPM and 7200RPM hard drive on laptops, and when I told him the specs of the G1s, he did say that the 8600gt will be taking a lot of power from a battery, which is obviously true. He did also state that if I did upgrade to a 7200, it would use more power, so I should leave it nonupgraded to get some increase in battery life. I got some more opinions on the hard drive from other people, and one person even said that the 7200RPM disc might be lighter than the 5400RPM disc, making it use the same amount of power, if not less.

I'm not sure where to stand on the issue, however, if I did want maybe 15-30 more minutes of battery life, should I be staying at 5400RPM? Would upgrading to a 7200RPM hard drive be really worth it, I mean I don't play the latest of games (WoW, CS:S, WC3, SC), but would I notice a difference in playing games that will be released in the future? All in all, I'd like to have the most battery life, but also be able to have my laptop running the best it possibly can.

~!Thanks-

 

7200 RPM drive has better seek and access times for data. You do see a difference between 7200 and 5400 when you play games. One such e.g would be Loading a sound file during games, a cut out movie scene and several events (actions) happening at one location during online play.

I do not think that the difference between power consumption of two drives is huge. One thing is for sure that 7200 rpm drive runs hotter than 5400 so this will in itself cause some power wastage (again marginal difference)

If you do not play any of the games you mentioned above and are into smaller titles then i would not worry about 7200 rpm. A true gamer will look for 7200 RPM anytime of the day. Thats why 10000RPM is preferred by gamers in desktops