M1330 Battery Tests ? Amazing!!!!

I received a few requests to comment on the difference in battery life that an SSD has in comparison to a normal laptop so… I put it to the test!!! I’ll concede right off that I just put my M1210 to bed after it shut off through sheer exhaustion when running side by side to this m1330. Im writing this now on the M1330 remaining power.

The two systems are very similar in that they are both C2D 2Ghz with 2Gb RAM, Bluetooth, soundblaster software, same antivirus, Explorer, windows mail and both with 9 cell batteries.. The difference is that my m1330 has a LED display rather than a CCFL as the M1210 does. The other, and most important difference is that the M1330 has a Sandisk 32Gb Solid State Drive whereas the M1210 has a 100Gb7200HD. The last difference is, of course that the platforms are a bit different with the M1330 based on the newer Santa Rosa. Aside from that, i left all the goodies on such as Sidebar, bluetooth, soundblaster, AVG Antivirus and the internet.

For anybody interested, this link will send you to my rather lengthy review of the Solid State Drive. I will admit it is rather biased as I am considering a divorce because of my ever growing love affair with this machine who is now affectional referred to as the ‘Lady in Red’.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=157999

A bit of a background on the tests… Both systems are on balanced battery mode with brightness set up to the ¾ mark on Dell Quickset. They have Windows mail checking the mail every two minutes and I have been playing on the internet all along. I added some things as I played two songs on each, one video of 6 minutes in length (don’t ask lol), re-installed the camera packages which created about 10 minutes of DVD usage, and I worked on two documents for work on MS Word. Each is about a page in length. I also had Vista Auto Update click in and downloaded a new update in each.

Oh and….the battery in the m1210 is also relatively new as I had it replaced on 18Jun07 by XPS Support.

Results:

Hour One End…

M1330 – 79% left
M1210 – 75% left

Hour Two End

M1330 – 61%
M1210 – 48%

Hour Three End

M1330 – 40%
M1210 – 21%

M1210 Dies

Total Time = 3Hrs and 35 Minutes
M1330 – 30%
NOTE: I am now working on this article on the m1330 while the test completes.

Hour Four End – M1330 – 21%
M1330 dies – 4 hrs and 47 minutes

I think its worth merit to explain that while both systems were running, my services were divided on each whereas now I am concentrating exclusively on this m1330 which should be recognized as being put under twice the workload now that the other system is retired.

Concluding I am really shocked. I expected the M1210 to compare but its not even close. During the tests, I observed the fan of the M1210 to be on during several functions and almost constantly noted the heat from the side. I have been trying to find heat dissipating from the M1330 but cannot and have yet to here the fan come on except for when the DVD was running.

I would believe in seeing this that the combination of the SSD and the LED which is supposed to be more energy efficient assists this system quite a bit.

In the end, for the most part at least in my mind, it puts to rest the benefits of the SSD as it has no moving parts, uses less power and creates less heat which reduces fan use.

Hope you liked this and rep me if you found this useful (scales bottom left). Further, feel free to comment as this keeps the post upfront for others to see for the first while in any case.

PS. Since I got almost 5 hours off the battery in this test, I am absolutely positive I can get close to seven hours in using this for basic function like notetaking or reports when all the goodies are shut off such as Sidebar, Bluetooth and whatnot.

 

yea, those battery did last pretty long. I think dell does terrific job at build and the quality of the products. I have two dell desktops, very old, and one laptop from them. All three of them had served me well through the years! I can't wait till I have my new laptop in hand though.

 

were you using the 9 cell for the m1330 for this test?

 

Yes and fixed...Thank you.

 

hey do you have to send back your other laptop m1210 if not i would love to see this done again with your hdd in your m1330 that would be tight to see how much longer you can get without sdd

 

Yup the other lappy has gone back unfortunately!!!

 

I really don't think this is a fair test, flamenko. As with your SSD review, though, I appreciate the time spent...

Problems:

1.) The batteries are not necessarily equal. My new M1330 arrived with a 6-cell battery with 19% wear level out of the box. Who knows what wear level your M1330/M1210 batteries are at. You should download NHC (Notebook Hardware Control) and check this.

2.) The M1210 runs EXTREMELY hot. I owned one before getting rid of it for my M1330. My M1210 had a 100GB 7200rpm, and my M1330 has a 200GB 7200rpm. The heat difference is night and day. The M1330's underside never runs more than warm, whereas the M1210 would burn my lap after a while. Bearing this in mind, the fact tha the fan has to blow like a mad thing on the M1210 surely helps the battery go down faster. So, your heat difference is not just because you went to SSD. The M1330 just runs much, much cooler.

3.) The chipsets are different, no matter how small of a difference that would make...

So, with those things taken into account....

 

This review is just what it is, a comparison between my M1210 and my M1330. I didn't review it, side by side, with my other systems because they have been sold, sealed.

Other than that, I believe I accounted for your other factors in the post. It shows what most wanted to know and that is that thre is a significant incrase in battery life in the newer system.

As far as my view that it has alot to do with the SSD, I keep hearing arguments otherwise which base it on solely the power consumption detailed in specs. This doesnt take into effect increase/decrease in CPU or fan use because of the different drive. I believe its just common sence that a hard drive in continuous use at a high level is going to consume a greater amount of battery power than SSD.

Now factor in that Vista is using HD space for its system performance which increases and decreases all the time; the SSD has no moving parts to draw more parts and create more heat for the fan to counter.


Thanks for the opinion...it is appreciated.

 

Without knowing the battery levels of both systems, it's impossible to draw any conclusions. No matter what the likely result may indeed be, without these determining facts, it's all moot!

 

Ummmm...both systems have batteries that reach 100%. Both batteries are relatively new and, considering the time that they lasted, I dont think that ANYONE would doubt that the batteries would function as they are supposed to fully charged.

Ide certainly be interested to hearing about your opinion on the turbomemory's effectiveness with 4Gb ram in your system lol.

William if you dont like something...dont read it. You seem to have exactly the opposit opinion of at least 10 others who have commented to me privately otherwise.

 

I think we already (quite conclusively) decided that the main reason for the battery life was not the SSD. I think my own battery tests have proven that.

Considering a 120mm medium speed computer fan only uses somewhere around 1.5-1.7W, I'd firmly place the notebook's fan at full speed to be under 1W easily. Hard drive use definitely doesn't heat up the system much so power savings there would be most likely within the margin of measurement error.

It's quite unfortunate you weren't able to keep two systems and perform a final, conclusive test though.

 

Yes it is...

 

I'm sorry my replies don't give you the warm fuzzy wuzzy feeling inside as others do. However, the fact that both batteries reach 100% is, also, meaningless. My new 6-cell that came with my M1330 has a 19% wear level, and yet still charges to 100%. What that 100% means, however, is 100% of 79%-full. Understand? So again, your test is inconclusive.

Second, I never once claimed that Turbomemory is effective in my system, which is why I have declined to write a "review."

 

I was asking about the turbomemory as i was hoping for different results than I had read (10%battery improvement).

If I had a battery that is like yours where it ays its one hundred percent but is not, I'de be addressing that along with the unclipped keyboard.

I can offer positive hope that later builds are improving...

 

Not entirely sure about Turbomemory, really. The thing that's odd about it is that in Hybrid Hard Drive mode is that it likes to turn my hard drive off when it feels like. This is all well and good, but it also likes to turn it back on only seconds later. For example. I can close the lid on my laptop, which just turns the screen off. About 30 seconds later the hard drive turns off. Great! However, within 10 or 15 seconds, the drive turns back on. Now this could be as a result of pretty much anything: antivirus, firewall, i8kfangui etc. Who knows? In any case, I find it annoying. I also found some interesting behaviour in Media Player playing a DVD. With Hybrid Hard drive mode on, the movie will play fine for a bit, and then suddenly everything goes quiet - the hard drive and the DVD drive, so clearly some caching took place and the hard drive and DVD drive aren't needed. However, when the hard drive and DVD drive spin back up, there's a VERY long movie-skipping (lasts probably 5-7 seconds) that takes place. So for all the above reasons, Hybrid Hard drive mode is switched off. I tend to think it's the DVD drive causing the skipping because if you eject the drive or put a disc in the drive, your whole system will freeze for a few seconds:

You can try that:

Start typing, push Eject, and keep typing while it's ejecting. See the freezing of text? All your text will appear after the drive is finished ejecting. Not cool.

In any case, with the dodgy drivers, and pain of uninstall/reinstall, nothing conclusive can be drawn about Turbomemory on my end, except that it messes with my DVD playing.

 

Flemenko why dont u Norton ghost your SSD set up to a 120 5400 rmp and 7200 rmp drive and run the exact same tests on all 3 drives by switching them out. That would make for a fair test. If my laptop arrives before x-mas i might do that.

 

Flamenko, thanks for the time spent on your review of battery life, but in addition to the remarks William and Chuck (rightfully) made, I also miss the exact conditions of your use (brightness level, wifi, programs loaded, etc.). Could you please give some real life figures as Chuck did. Now I have read Chuck's review again, I am starting to wonder if it reaaly makes sense upgrading to SSD for battery life.....

 

I dont know how to respond except to state exactly what you arent seeing. I listed the brightness level (3/4) and mode (balanced) and programs (btu/wifi/programs used).

My figures are as real life as you can get as I sat here typing playing and monitoring on both systems as I did.

I average 5 hours on my 9cell every day....It impresses me so can I ask of others...is that what you are averaging for balanced/3/4bright/wifi/bt/qs/avg and sidebar with 4 gadgets on a 9 cell battery?

 

Fair enough.

I normally work mobile with half brightness and wifi on. Browsing and doing ms office tasks. Bluetoot I really almost never use.

 

I'm getting mine tomorrow do I need to charge it for 9 hours before first use?

Also how do you lot clean the screen?

 

No...The battery will probably be about 3/4 full when you get it.

I was shocked you dug up this article after so long. Wow!!

 

haha year, got the laptop and the keyboards nackerd are the dell repair people any good?

 

i can get my 6-cell m1330 get average 4 hours: web browsing and ms word and aim. objectdock is always on.