DM4T Battery Problems

Over a month ago I got my wife a new DM4T with the i5-430, switchable graphics, and the high capacity 6-cell battery.

We just got from a 13 hour flight and wanted to watch some movies (blu-ray). Although the laptop was fully charged earlier in the morning, when I turned it on on the plane, it only had 93% charge. I then attached an external usb 2.0 blu-ray drive to watch Sunshine Cleaning (blu-ray). The movie was only 90 minutes long, but when it was done, i only had 26% battery life left. This was with WIFI off, intel hd graphics on, and brightness turned all the way down.

Does anyone have any thoughts? Could bluray really kill battery life like this?

 

I thihnk that yes, blu ray will kill battery life. In fact I think any movie will kill battery life. I remember while I was researching laptops to buy, watching a movie (dvd or blue ray) seemed to cut battery life in half, minimum. Someone else will know for sure

 

Often times I hear movie playback times listed using either a digital copy or DVD, but never bluray, let alone from an external drive (blu or dvd). This would probably have lasted for a 2 hour movie, but I was expecting at least 3 hours of movie playback.

 

I'm thinking it's completely normal thus considering how much the CPU has the render the data from the bluray disk, and also power the external drive.
And also keep in mind, the drive is continuously being powered, spinning the disk.

 

You're much better off using a digital copy. Any external devices are serious power drains, external blue ray readers are even worse.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I know a digital copy would have saved a lot of juice. I'll have to do a test with a DVD and see how much that drains the battery in comparison.

I'm still looking for a comment on how the battery dropped 7% on bootup.