Odd power consumption results of m4400 vs Studio XPS 13

The Studio XPS 13 should have a lower power consumption than the m4400 because of the small screen size(13"vs15"), lower power CPU(TDP of 25 vs 35), and a lower power graphics card (9200M vs 770M). Notebookcheck reports that the XPS 13 lasts 3hrs20min on idle, no wifi, and min brightness and 1hr10min under full load and max brightness. In contrast they also report that the m440 will last 4hrs31min and 1hr35min respectively. How can the m4400 outlast the XPS 13 when they are using the same battery and has higher power requirements?

 

You couldn't have taken the liberty of linking to the reviews of the XPS 13 and m4400 in question?

I would like to compare the battery eater charts for the computers but they are pending on one for the XPS 13.

 

haha sorry about that. had a long day at work before posting. So no speculation about why the numbers are what they are?

 

The SXPS 13 also has an SSD whereas the M4400 has a 7200RPM spinner

If I had to take a guess here, I'd say the combination of the 9400M chipset and the 9500M GPU on the SXPS 13 contributes the most to the machine's lower battery run time. I would say that the PM45 draws significantly less power than the 9400M, and that the FX770 pulls about the same idle power as the 9500M. CPU idle power should be about the same as well.

... but nonetheless, I would still think that the other mentioned attributes of the M4400 would narrow the playing field. I could speculate that maybe the SXPS 13 fan runs more or that the 4GB of memory uses just that much more power, but I mean in the end it really just doesn't make that much sense. I dunno what's going on here...

 

Were they conducting both tests with 6 cell batteries? The SXPS battery is pretty small - a 15" equivalent battery would be larger than a 13".

 

Kinda cheap quote from the reviews:

Dell equips the Studio XPS 13 with a lithium-ions battery with a capacity of 53.7 Wh; the M4400 comes with a 6 cell lithium-ions battery with a capacity of 56 Wh.

Our notebookreview.com reviews state that the m4400 will last for ' approximately 2 hours 45 minutes of normal office usage at 30% display brightness' and ' around 2-3 hours depending on what I'm doing'.

These times that notebookcheck.com has for the m4400 (4h 31min[longest time], 3h 17m[Surfing with WLAN] and 1hr35min[under load]).

 

That's very odd. I have no idea how they could manage to squeeze that much power out of a 6 cell on a M4400.

 

Sorry to bring this back but incase someone was still curious about this wackiness it looks like we finally have an answer! It seems that Notebookcheck just messed up the tests somehow. From Notebookreview's review of the XPS 13 (Hey look namaiki, I remembered the link! XD) it can last 4hr5min with 30%brightness and wifi which is significantly more than what notebookcheck reported. These numbers seem more accurate to me as there is no way such a low powered machice should be averaging ~16W(taken from the NBC's stats if you do the math). With my newly aquired m4400 with RGBLED screen(sucks up more power than the WLED screen on the test units) I can get the power consumption down to ~16W so NBR's ~13W(again you have to do a little math, and this isnt the minimum btw) fits better.

Who knew 3W equaled an hr of battery life? (just noticed that!)