Vostro 1500 pre-purchase questions

configured a vostro 1500 (t7500, 8600m gt, 2gb ram, xga+) and came out to $1328 sounds like a nice deal..

anyway, i have a few questions. when i selected teh battery, it said up to 7:30 of battery life (which i would assume, is with the slowest processor, x3100).. what would the battery life of my config be around?

also, does dell sell secondary batteries to put in the optical drive bay as they do with their other laptops? i tried searching and couldn't find anything on it

thanks

 

I assume you're talking about the 9-cell; I have a Vostro 1500 with this, and I get 6 hours+ on a full charge, maybe more. This is with normal office-type use (Internet etc.). Only difference in spec is T7100 instead of T7500, which shouldn't matter much, as the proc clocks down when not in high demand. Gaming is somewhere around 3 hours.

Note that the 8600 clocks down as well due to the PowerMizer settings in the drivers. I can't imagine there would be a ton of difference between the x3100 and 8600GT in power when neither are being used seriously (ie. no gaming).

I'm not sure about the 7:30 time; I wouldn't even expect to get that sitting in Windows doing nothing (brightness down, WiFi off, etc.).

 

thats with all the wireless off, screen on min, and only typing a word document. i can get about 5.5 with wireless on and normal use.