To all XPS m1210 owners - Battery question!!

Hi.

I'm very interested in purchasing the m1210 and I have been looking around on the Internet for 2-3 days now, reading up on anything I can find.

But the thing that I am mostly interested in is how long does the battery last for? I've got mixed views - some say about 4:30, some say 5~ or even 6+ hours?

I've got a Acer Aspire 5672WLMI with:

• CoreDuo 1.66GHz
• 2Gb DDR2 RAM 533MHz
• 120GB HDD
• ATI x1400 Mobility

which lasts me 1:40 on Wi-Fi with lowest brightness! What the hell! It's so annoying.

I really wanna play some casual games such as UT2k4 and FlatOut sometimes, thats why I want the 7400Go but how much will it decrease the battery time by having the dedicated graphics card?

I really can't decide and will the onboard be enough for Vista aero and stuff like that?

Help me people, please please. It would seem this is the best place to ask since I saw quite a few m1210 owners while reading through the forum.

Thank you guys!

Joe

 

I'm not sure, but I will tell you 1:40!? Thats pretty lame.

 

Yes I know mate, it sucks totally.

 

Running time (hours) = battery capacity (watt-hours) / power drain in watts. Is that Acer's battery only 3 or 4 cells and total capacity less than 4 W-hr (40,000mW-hr)?

MobileMeter will tell you the battery capacity and power drain and you can then experiment to see what sucks the power. 1.66MHz Core Duo and X1400 is much the same config as my old Samsung X60 which had a 6 cell battery with capacity of 57.72W-hr when new and I could just about get 3 hours running with a power drain of about 18W. I can't get my current X60 plus below about 25W (probably due to lack of power management FOR the X1700) so it is only good for about 2 hours.

Read my review of my Q35 (link in signature) for a more comprehensive discussion of power drain and battery life. Part of the challenge is to identify any programs / processes which keep the CPU active when it could be sleeping. For example, I have just installed Flashblock for my Firefox to stop all those animated adverts from draining the battery.

I would expect that the M1210 with Intel graphics would give much the same battery life potential as my Q35 since the hardware is generally similar (but Samsung may have made some power-saving tweaks, for example the Q35 has only one IDE channel). This would suggest up to 5 hours with a dim backlight and no wireless / Bluetooth for the 6 cell battery option.

So much for my theory. Now what do the M1210 users actually get?

John

 

Wow thanks - that was interesting and I've just downloaded and here's the info I got - its currently plugged in to charge though cause yes... the battery was dead again. I think its a 9-cell but here's the info I got from that app.

Remaing wattage: 41869mWh
Designed capicity: 71049mWh
Fully charged capicity: 47423mWh
Wear level: 33%
Voltage: 2mV

And that means nothing to me?

Oh and I just checked my recharge rate - it's at 964.8w!! Err is that normal? Yours was 60w max? I just read your review - very intersting by the way.

But it Acer does say - Quickcharge - charges battery to 80% in an hour even under use. And it does seem to work - but nearly 1000w?

 

Look at my specs. Without playing and doing everything else and wi-fi and bluetooth on i get easily 4.30 hours .
If you want to play it is reccomended from Dell to use AC Power .
If you will get on board graphics you will increase to 5.30 hours but you won't
play present games .
I forgot i have a 9 cell battery and lcd on low light

 

With my specs, 9 cell battery, I can easily pull 4.5 to 5 hours of battery life with wifi on and surfing the internet, doing general stuff.

If you start gaming on the battery though, it'll probably drop down to 2.5ish hours of battery life. I'm not sure though, since I haven't tried gaming on the battery.

 

gaming without the AC adapter is just retarded.

 

5 hours man?? That sounds SO cool. Cause that's what I usually, just go on the Internet via Wi-fi and with Windows Media Player 11 running on music. I think I'm going to love the m1210 if it can do that. So cool!!!

Thanks for the replies.

I don't ever try to play my games on battery - its a bit silly I think.

 

I'd say you'll be very pleased with most if not all aspects of your M1210, I know I am with mine.

 

if you didnt get it yet, you should also look on the sony SZ, you can use integraded gfx while not gaming, that will give you like a extra 30mins-1hr, with the extended battery I get 5.5h with wifi on, and 6.5 wifi off, low brightness

 

I don't know, but i think it would be pretty pointless to use the integrated graphics card if you are planning to run aero. this is one of the reason why i picked the m1210 instead of the SZ

 

Integrated graphics can run aero fine.

 

Whether you're choosing integrated graphics or the Nvidia 7400 go, the M1210 is a great choice.

 

well, the thing I liked is that you dont have to make a choice