T61 Battery concerns

I was just about ready to pull the trigger on a 14.1" T61, but now I am getting cold feet from reading more about the battery life. I was planning to run T8300, 7200 rpm hd, and the discrete graphics, but it sounds like this would definitely require the 9 cell battery (Lenovo only offers 4 or 9 right now). Does anyone have experience with the 9 cell? I am afraid it would negate the portability gained by going with a 14.1" notebook in the first place. I would also be willing to buy the media bay battery and the 4 cell, but I have heard that even this wouldn't last long with my preferred setup.

I am now leaning more toward the Dell D630 so I could keep my setup and still keep the portability. I would appreciate it if you could either reinforce this idea or tell me why it would be worth it to either scale down the specs or have the 9 cell battery to deal with in order to get the T61. Thanks in advance.

 

I had both a T61P 14.1" SXGA+ and a T61 14.1" SXGA+

T61P :

FX570M
T7300 2.0Ghz 4mb L2+
100GB SATA 7.2k
9cell


T61 :

Intel X3100
T7100 1.8Ghz 2mb L2
80gb SATA 5.4k
6cell


I installed Vista on both machines and set it to best performance ( Aero and all effects are disabled ) . The best battery life I could get with low brightness, Wifi disabled, "Maximum Battery Life" setting and battery strech was around 3:45hrs on the T61P.

With my current T61 I get around 5:15hrs on low brightness with the aforementionned settings on a 6 cell ! I've yet to try a 9c on the T61 but it looks promising.

Now if only I could get a Perynn chip and a 9cell...

 

To give you an idea of battery life, I get a little over 4 hours on my T61 (see sig) with the 9 cell while typing notes, browsing, and chatting on MSN. This is without any particular battery saving measures besides 3/4 screen brightness.

I have to admit the 9 cell battery is pretty big and does stick out about an inch or so. I also have the 6 cell battery and the 9 cell is noticeably bigger. However, even with the 9 cell the laptop retains its portability. While it may be bigger than some other 14" laptops, it is still noticeably lighter than any 15.4" laptop, while maintaining a small footprint as well.

The size of the 9 cell battery is actually my only complaint about the laptop, everything else about it is great

Edit: I don't see my sig for whatever reason, so:
Lenovo T61 14" W
Core 2 Duo T9300 @ 2.5 GHz | 4 GB DDR2 667 | nVidia Quadro NVS140M | 120 GB HD @ 5400 RPM

 

Thanks for the input. I am confident that I could get the necessary battery life out of the 9 cell, but I am still concerned about the portability and awkwardness. I will be taking the computer with me nearly every day, so I want to be sure that the T61's strong points outweigh the more compact profile of the D630. Does anyone have pictures of the T61 with the 9 cell battery or know of a link to one? I have only been able to find pictures of the 6 cell.

 

Jgarrett, here's a link to a picture of the 9-cell battery (half way down the page)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=242801

 

That's a 15" T61 in the picture, but to give you an idea, that's what a 6-cell looks like on the 14". I'll try and take some pictures if I get a chance.

 

That would be great if you could if you get the chance. Thanks.

 

I had some time to take some pics tonight, have a look:

The laptop, 14" widescreen T61



6 cell pictures




9 cell pictures

 

Looks pretty much the same as my R61.

 

You can squeeze a little bit more battery power if you get the SATA ultrabay adapter and use that as a boot device and remove the primary hard disk...I am not sure why this is the case but I have seen close to a 20 minute increase in battery life by using the SATA Ultrabay as the bootup device.


It also makes the computer run a lot cooler, no more palm rest heat!!!!

 

The 14" T61 and R61 are pretty much identical, except for the T61 being slightly thinner, lighter, and the copper heatsink.

 

On the 2nd last picture there, The battery seems to be moved up? is it adjustable or something?

 

I bought a 9-cell with my T61p and it does not look like the one in those pictures. It looks like the 6-cell in the pictures. Have they changed the shell, or was there some kind of shipping mistake?