Disappointing Battery Life In Studio 17

I was reading the review of the Studio 17 and it sounds like a yummy laptop. But I was disappointed to read that the 9 cell battery only delivers around 2 and a half hours of battery life. My friend's fully loaded Inspiron 1720 with a 9 cell lasts over 4+ hours with vista set on battery saver mode. Anyone else find this to be odd? Do the new components in the Studio really suck up that much extra juice??

 

Hmmm not sure youd think it would get more than that

 

Well, I know what my friend's laptop does. And I remember the first 17 inch notebook from Dell had good battery life for the display size. I just figured Dell would continue the trend. I expected a small drop off but nothing that extreme. I guess I just got used to my old Gateyway M680 that lasted well over 3 hours with DVD playback and almost 6 with just email and word processing

 

yeah almost 6 is pretty darn good......geez howd you get so much rep with only 31 posts haha

 

He's been a member for just over 3 years.

[/offtopic]

 

I would guess that as the hardware involved is all pretty much identical - it's the same platform in a different box essentially after considering the GPU - you wouldn't really see much difference between the two.

And what tasks and power scheme was the reviewer using to compare with with your mates 4+ hours?

 

Well, my friend was using the balanced power scheme on his laptop (Vista) and had wireless on, surfing the net, and some basic word processing. His battery indicated at 82% charge that he had roughly 3 hrs and 52 minutes. That was last week.

My old Gateway was the M680 and I had the screen brightness set only 3 down from max and the laptop was on power saver configuration (windows XP)

I was going to get an Inspiron 1720 a little over a year ago. But I tried one at a Kiosk and the one my friend had got and I liked the style and feel of it. But those Dell Media buttons below the mouse trackpad kept getting hit by my fingers and wrists and it was just such an annoyance. I am still in the market for a new laptop. I was looking at the Vostro 1710 but to get the one I want is still more than I am willing to spend. The only requirements I have are a 17 inch display with high resolution (need the extra space for multiple windows), decent battery life (at least 3 hours, more preferred) and full numeric keypad.

The studio looks good at first, but I don't think I could like the way it rises and gets thicker. Plus that won't fit into my laptop bag.

 

Ahh makes sense

 

The reviews I read about the 17/9cell said that its roughly 2.5 hrs in high performance mode. I would think in vista w/save mode it would be comperable depending on the setup (hardware and add-on's/processes running) as your friends rig.