Max battery life config = XPS M1330?

SYSTEM COLOR Tuxedo Black
PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5250 (2MB cache/1.5GHz/667Mhz FSB)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium Edition
LCD AND CAMERA Standard Display with 2.0 Megapixel Webcam (1280x800)
MEMORY 1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
HARD DRIVE 120GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
INTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW Drive)
VIDEO CARD Intel® Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
WIRELESS CARDS Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-card
BATTERY OPTIONS 85Whr Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell)
SOUND OPTIONS High Definition Audio 2.0
FINGERPRINT SCANNER Biometric Fingerprint Reader

I'd probably change the hard drive out for an SSD for speed and battery life. The goal would be 8 hours on the 9-Cell battery between word/excel/internet work. I would also remove Vista and install XP Pro.

What do you guys think? Our Inspiron 1520 (in sig) with a $1500 config, Crysis capable, can show 6 hours remaining on the battery at idle, but would probably only manage 4-5 hours with use. Is a config like the one above with all power saving options and an SSD drive capable of 8 hours of usable battery life?

 

Getting an LED screen would make quite an improvement.

 

I would think so, but for $300 it'd be hard to convince myself of that one.

 

are you gonna upgrade the ram yourself? itd most definitely be helpful. lowers hard drive access. speeds up apps running. just better all around.

 

Upgrade the processor a little bit to future proof yourself.. the speedstep technology will run at slower speed anyway when on battery... so you dont need to pick the lowest processor speed.. difference will be small..

 

I normally do, but I'd have to weigh that one as sticks of RAM use watts of power as well.

 

So the question still remains, with current technology is 8 hours of uptime achievable with any current configuration in the industry or do we need to wait until 2008 or even 2009?

Preferably nothing smaller than 13", that's already getting pretty cramped

 

If you are willing to go down to 11" the Vaio TX is the king of battery life. If you neede 13"+ the Dell D630 does really really well with the 9 cell too.

If battery life truly is your only concern then get a notebook with a secondary battery that can be swapped with the DVD drive.. even the old Acer Travelmate 800 can do 10 hours with two batteries installed..