High Cap Battery, worth the $30?

Hi all,

I really want to get a dv600t sometime this summer, but I wasn't sure whether or not the $30 USD upgrade to the high capacity 6 cell battery was worth it. I know that the standard 6 cell gets like a 2 hour charge mx, but is the extra 16% in the high-capacity unit really make enough difference for the price?

Does anybody here own one? If so, would you recommend getting the high-cap battery, or should I just buy an extra 6 cell in addition to the one that comes with the dv6000t?

Thanks!

 

Well, a 16% increase in battery life only amounts to around ~20mins(if you take the std cell gives around 120mins or 2hrs) extra juice. The high capacity battery(I suspect) is only there to overcome the decreased battery life bought about by the power hungry Vista. If you really need extended battery life then the 12 cell is what you should go for.

 

Sorry to jack the topic but I have a question: how much batter life do you get by setting from balanced to high performance and what gets turned on/off?

 

Indeed. I was really hoping for an 8 or 9 cell battery to come out when Vista shipped (one that would hopefully still fit within the notebook), but I guess it wasn't meant to be.

I've never tested the high-performace mode long enough to see how quickly it drained the battery, but in the short time I used it would guess it's as much as 30% less battery life... and for no real difference in performance. That will vary A LOT depending on what components your machine uses, though, as different parts have different power-saving modes. Even on a desktop, there's really no reason to use high performance mode. It turns off pretty much every power-saving feature in your machine -- including power-saving features of the processor, graphics card, WiFi adaptor, etc. There is no reason for say, your processor to run at full speed when you are typing or using the internet. It's just wasting power and producing excess heat. Your processor speed (under balanced) ramps up so quickly when it needs to, you'd never notice it anyway.

Now, power saver mode is another beast entirely. By default, it will turn of DWM (and aero along with it), keep your processor running at a slower speed or deeper sleep state more frequently, etc. It does effect performance, but you can gain a fair amount of battery life too.

In general I always recommend starting with balanced mode, and then making any adjustments in the advanced settings that you think are necessary.

 

Thanks a lot for explaining that!

 

Got a few questions,
When i (hopefully) get this laptop i want it to just have a normal 6 cell, but i also want to buy a 12 cell separately for if i just happen to be away from a power outlet for a while. I'm not buying the laptop from hp or any other online shop because it's actually going to be a replacement for my current lemon which is now being replaced (hopefully) because its been repaired 3 times and the extended warranty says that it will be replaced with a similar priced laptop after 3 repairs from one of their chosen shops Whats the best place to buy the battery? ebay? some other sit?

If it comes with vista (probable) should i install xp on it?

How long does the 12 cell battery last, and are its cooling benefits really noticeable?

Is there a way to turn this annoying beep i hear about which goes off when you change the volume off?

also if i connect it to my cd player through the headphone jack will it's output be very....loud? the laptop i have isn't and my cd player is 450 watts RMS and even if its on full sounds quiet. Is that just to do with the quality of all sound cards in laptops?

oh, and is the battery utility and all (screen brightness, cpu power etc) all in some hp power thing, or does it just use windows power control thing? just wondering because my toshiba has a power controlling thing by toshiba which i can control a few things to save power. (sorry if i diddnt make much sense, i dont know the exact name for everything)


-thanks