Students! What would you want your Battery Life to be?

This is aimed at university students, who carry thier laptops around and go to lectures etc.

If you could choose, how long would you *want* your battery to last while at school??

I'm also interested in hearing how many lectures you take your laptop to and if battery life is an issue for you.

And if you want to comment, how long does it actually last, is it 6,9 cell, what do you do while on battery etc

Thanks!
Nick

 

I usually try to avoid taking my laptop to class since I'd be inclined not to pay attention. I can make it through either 2 long or 3 short lectures, but I could squeeze out more if I really power save (standby all the time). I have a 6-cell battery and can get about 2 1/2 hours on power saver (not bad for a gaming machine with no integrated graphics to rely on for power saving) with wireless on and web browsing. As to how long I would want it to last, as long as possible really.

 

hm how could one not want more batterylife no matter what. my 2710p had close to 6h. i'd like more. 12 would be cool. but i'd measure in other terms. how long can i dj with traktor scratch, audio 8 dj over usb and the midicontroller? (because i once had forgotten my power cord for days and went to a radio station for a gig. i could only gig for half an hour till my notebook turned off )

 

unfair - the vote deleted my post...

I bring my laptop along every day - however, being in the UK, I rarely use it in lectures/tutorials.

I can ge about 4-4,5 hours out of an 80% charge.

6 cell batter - SZ7 Premium model

I voted 5+ - and might actually get that out of a full 100% charge.

 

DetlevCM, but how much of your battery do you use when not powered? Do you consume all those hours of batterylife all the time, or can you do fine with a lower batterytime?

 

on my 8510p i get a little over 4.5hrs on my 6cell with my cpu undervolted, the cpu/gpu underclocked to the lowest possible settings, and backlight all the way down. Funny thing is that this new battery gets almost double the life as my old 6cell. They are both the same type, and both fit my laptop but the older one hold 48,000mAh while my new one hold 72,000mAh(these are the manufacture specs so this does not include wear/tear from usage of the old batt)

Usually pack my extended battery cause i hate racing to class just to grab a seat close to the outlet...Next semester i'll have 3 long classes in a row so the extended batt will be a must. I wish the internal ones would do better...hate it when i have something protruding out like the consumer extended batteries...Hope HP releases those 'new' batteries soon...with only a $30 premium i'll be all over it...

 

My old vostro could pull 5+ easily with the 9 cell but my studio 15 has a hard time to get 2 hours it seems. Thankfully i have an outlet near me where ever i am.

 

i try not to bring my laptop to lectures(except stuff like computer-related class... im a CS_major, so thats like 50% of my class )

laptop = surf = concentration would drift off

though an ideal laptop IMO would be 4 pounds and 4-5 hours of battery....my current one is a 4 pound 3-4hour battery...

battery life isnt an issue because i'm old skewl.... pen+paper rocks... battery life isnt an issue because i know how many hours i need(lecture ~1-2 hours... most of my lectures are spread apart enough), and i know how to undervolt+brightness to save battery

 

I'd like 5+ hours...

Problem is I won't compromise a good gpu for it.

I wouldn't say it's an 'issue' because of ac power.

 

All other stuff equal, of course I'd want my battery to last 5+ hours. I'd almost never use it that long, but it'd be nice.

I generally don't take my laptop to lectures. Compsci class is the only one I regularly do, and even there I don't always. It's just nice to have all my work on my hard drive there so if there's maintenance on the school servers I still have it. Also nice to have a non-super-glossy screen, even if it does mean no touch-screen. And if it's a course that uses school tablets, my computer's a whole lot faster (IBM X41's are the slowest computers I've ever seen, and many of the faculty have said the same thing). Other than that, I've taken it to history class a few times when we've had .pdf's to read - I'd read them off my hard drive and bring my laptop to class to save a few trees. But most other classes, I don't see a point. Paper notes are quieter and nearly as quick, and allow quicker color-coding and diagrams. So the longest I've used my laptop for in a class would be 75 minutes, though 150 may happen at some point depending on my schedule (back-to-back long lectures). Never long enough that I ever need to bring an AC charger.

More often I'll take my laptop to the library for typing a report or work on a compsci project. Depending on how big of a workload it is I may bring my AC charger - something short and there's no need to. I can actually get 5 hours of battery life if I turn on power-saving measures and don't need wireless Internet, so a lot of times I don't bring the AC charger to the library.

I also occasionally use the battery just to be in a different location (i.e. on bed). In these cases I could move the AC charger, but it's easier just to go on battery. Typically I browse the Net in these cases, play low-GPU, high-CPU strategy games, or play high-GPU, high-CPU racing games (those run the battery down in about an hour, which isn't bad at all really). Stuff that doesn't need a mouse.

I've got an Inspiron 1520 with a nine-cell, 85 WHr battery and 8600M GT dedicated graphics (medium power-draw for dedicated graphics). I certainly wouldn't trade a decent GPU and decent-size screen for battery life, either, so the relatively high-capacity 9-cell is nice. Used to get 5+ hours without undervolting, now I have to undervolt/SLFM for that. Turn the screen off (mp3 player mode) and I get 5.5 to 6 hours.

 

Depending on the circumstances I plug my laptop in for about 1 hour - at times I have used it down to 10%

On thursdays I use very little (just 1 lecture & 1 tutorial)

 

5+, definitely. Being able to carry my laptop to a different place on campus without worrying about taking my power cord and then finding an outlet would kick . Especially since outlets have a tendency to tether you to a very inconvenient place (for me at least). Not to mention 3 hour lectures...

 

Kinda of a dumb question, everyone would want as long of a battery life as possible. I normally get max 2 hours since I have to power a GeForce 9500m GS all the time.

 

9000 Hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I meant how long would you need to have a comfortable day at school, e.g. "I have 2 lectures so around 3 hours would be good" or "I have 1 lecture plus like to go have coffee and study after so over 2 hours is what I would want"

I realise that as much as possible is the most logical answer, though

Thanks to all who have replied so far! It has been really interesting reading your replies

 

that's just too much for now =P

 

9000!!!!!

On a more serious note, "5+ hours" is not enough granularity especially when its the biggest option. I'd vote for a 5-7 hour category because the compromises to be made for a better battery life may just be too much. Kind of like this:

 

as long as possible, of course. is there such a thing as too much battery life? no. if you had a battery that never needed to be recharged, itd sell like crazy. the problem is the offset in size, and hardware it can sustain. i need a minimum of 1.5 hours to get through a lecture with some safety room. if i really need to i can usually just sit next to an outlet and plug it in though.

 

I want a gazillion hours. Even though I don't bring my lappy to school.

 

This is a strange question/poll. For something like battery life, wouldn't anyone want 5+ hours or the most they can get? Why would anyone wish for less battery life when attending lectures? :S

 

Ideally, as long as it can.. Realistically, 10-12 hours would be good.. I get about 5 hours, on a XPS 1330, 9cell..

 

Most people seem to have missunderstod the question. how long batterylife do you ACTUALLY need to make the day?
So if you're at school and such and use your computer for 3hours, you wouldn't need much more than 3hours batterylife to have a pleasant day without annoying yourself over how short the batterylife is.

If you need 15hours, then say so, most people _don't need_ more than say 4hours, but they vote for 5+ anyways because they didn't understand the original question.

Otherwise as you say, why would anyone wish for less batterylife if it's not because of how much you actually need!

So people, how much do you actually need? (not want/dreaming about)

 

ok what i need. getting up in the morning, plugin it out. having it all time beside me incl wlan / wwan for notes and msn and such during the day.. in the evening i won't go home first, at our bar/club i need it, too, don't want to connect. so i guess from about 6 or 7 in the morning to midnight.. would be what i could usefully use.