M51SN-X2 vs M50SV F8P-X2B F9Sg-A1

I have been looking for a laptop for a bit. I kind of settled on ASUS b/c they have really good connections, and value it seems.

Only problem is battery life. So how does the battery life stack up with these? I listed the ones I found already

M51SN-X2
M50SV ( 2:30)
F8P-X2B
F9Sg-A1

The advantage of M50SV is the higher resolution screen, but it has a faster Penryn and associated higher current draw, or BluRay which I don't want.
The M51SN-X2 has a lower res screen, but otherwise seems great.

That is why the F9Sg-A1 is listed with the 9300M GPU, but I don't know how much difference any of this will make in battery life.

If anyone can help me out I would really appreciate it. I have been waiting till the Penryn chips came out more abundantly and am getting slightly itchy trigger fingers.

 

Asus can't seem to code a decent BIOS for battery management these days; then again, this has been a problem for well over a year now -- don't expect anything much above 3 hr (2.5 max is much more realistic) for any of their current or immediate upcoming models, regardless of config. Dedicated gpu is just that, it won't cut power consumption down to the level of Igpu, and the difference between the 86 and 92/3/4 series will be modest (if any) improvement in that department.

Bottom line, if you want Asus you have to accept their battery limitations in order to get what they ship under the hood.

 

That is fair enough. I was just wondering what the tradeoff was.

If the battery life won't change then there is no reason not to get a faster Penryn and the 9500M graphics.

I just assumed it would add a decent bit to drop to 9300M and 8100 (cpu).

To bad the dell xps 13 inch model doesn't include a 9x00M series GPU yet either.

 

Direct published comparisons show that there is an improvement in battery life using the Penryn-series cpu's, but the effect is modest (on the order of 5-10%, as I recall). Comparing to a 3hr base battery life using the Merom-series, that's less than 20 minutes with Penryn.

Dell will probably update the gpu of the 1330, but probably not until the 8400 chips start running down and nVidia shifts more production to the 9-series replacements.

 

Since we're talking about battery life....this may come across as a really dumb question. Does the M50Sv-A1 have any sort of back-up battery system within the computer? So that when your battery is about to die, you can pop it out and put in another charged battery....all of course without being plugged in to the house electrical.

 

The simple answer is no. No system has it, even those that do have a modular battery won't let you swap batteries with the notebook still powered up, you have to hibernate/shut down first.

 

Thanks for the quick answer. I think my idea isn't a bad one and we might see some manufacturer try this concept someday.

 

Is this for other brands or ASUS laptops? 20 minutes is nothing to sneeze at when you are talking 150 Minutes baseline.

Any idea about moving from a 9500M to a 9300M (GPU). I really would like to get 3hrs out of my laptop, but I love the ASUS models for other reasons.

Is it possible to get 3hours if you turn screen brightness way down?

I honestly doubt this is likely to happen any time soon. You would be talking about having a separate battery and all the extra cost associated with it.

 

Thanks for your thoughts on my battery switch concept.

After now playing the the M50Sv-A1 for a day I can tell you that 2 hours is as good as it gets and that is with the screen at a lower brightness setting. I'll probably buy the larger battery at some point in the near future--since it's 50% larger that should top out at 3 hours.

 

IIRC on my old Compal Cl 56 there was such a feature, you had to put the notebook into hibernation and then you had ~2mins to switch out the main battery, and then you could resume from hibernation where you left off.

 

1. All notebooks have this (not just Asus), but remember I said 5-10% depending on config. 5% is 9 minutes on 3 hr base battery time, which Asus doesn't even really have; 2.5hr x 10% = 15min. I agree, nothing to sneeze at but still not great enough to effect a substantial benefit in daily usage. The comparisons between Penryn chips were done on a couple of tech sites using identical notebook configs, where CPU was the only variable as I recall.

2. Dropping the gpu will not have any substantial difference in power consumption between them, since the memory and core speeds are going to be similar (although Asus loves to factory-underclock their gpus before ship). It's still a dedicated gpu, which is going to draw more power than Igpu no matter what.

3. Maybe, as LCD is a major power eater, but it might have to be so far down as to be unusable.

Back to my first point a while ago, if you want Asus you'll have to accept that battery run-time is not their focus or priority. I thought I read somewhere that Asus had done some marketing research that showed the end-user was generally happier with better specs rather than battery time in the same machine. That makes sense, especially in the American market where the public at-large is pretty clueless about the effect of different components and just wants the fastest, biggest numbers they can get for the (almighty) cheapest price - quality be damned..... it's the Wal-Mart effect.

 

An advantage of the penryn chip, along with the nvidia 9500, is that they produce less heat. I can use my M50 as a true laptop (since my lap is big enough to hold it). The heat sink and radiator vent gets warmer than I like, but I simply slide that side of the computer away from me to the left.

As to battery run time....the 6 cell Asus batery comes in right at 2 hours. Thus, I believe that the optionaly 9 cell battery would last 3 hours--that is very pretty equivalent to the Sager 2092 which comes with a 9 cell battery standard.

 

That isn't so bad then. As I can buy the 9cell and then if necessary use both for 5 hours. Right now I have a large battery for my old hp and the small one. The large one gets 6 hours though. I think I will go with the 51SN-X2 or the 14" one. I will have to look them up again quickly to see which it is and which will fit on the meal tray thing of an airplane. My current laptop has too big of a screen since it isn't a wide screen.

Hibernation uses no power. Any laptop can be hibernated the battery cna be taken out and put back in two weeks later.

There is a small battery on the motherboard to keep bios settings/clock etc just like in a desktop.

 

On the airplane issue I found this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=122909

That paints a grim picture of my fortunes. Sounds like they think only a 12-13" is usable on the tray in an airplane...

I am leaning toward the m51 now and just saying screw the airplane bit. That is where I want the long battery life as well...I don't fly tons, but I like to be able to be productive so I can ignore the cramped and annoying quarters.

 

I have another question that I have been unable to determine the answer to.

Does anyone sell 9cell batteries for the f8p or f9s? I can only find them for the m51-0 series.