W510 battery life

ok well im stuck in a real rock and a hard between the t410, t410s, w510..

i seriously do not know where to go ?>???

anyway this is what i was thinkn

the w510 is really not that much larger .. slightly longer not really thicker... i was gonna get that..

but what is the bat life..

normally i will not need a Huge bat life..

but on airplanes.. with wireless off, brightness down pretty low (darker area), all apps closed except playing videos (not dvd drive.. off SSD)... how long can i get a video? rollin? seriously..

brightness turned down mostly.. but yea.. it will be an HD movie off my ssd (not conventional spinning hd...???

i would also buy a second battery but i can really see at least 3 hours like this..?

 

I wouldn't consider the W510 very airplane friendly. Those three laptops all serve pretty distinct purposes. If movie watching is your main purpose (not sure?) the w510's power might be overkill for your purposes. What are you looking to accomplish or do with your laptop?

 

well im going to do some programming and getting a new laptop for school..

this will be my desktop replacement so i want it to have some good speed and performance.... i just dont know/ dont understand which route to go really.. Its such a tough choice...


I like the 16:10... but hte USB 3.0 is also very nice ... it will be plugged most of the time.. but like you said its not very portable.. is it a huge difference over the T series ? i looked at some pics and it doesnt really look any thicker or longer.. just slightly wider?

 

Size wise it is same as the T510. But it is fair chunk bigger and slightly thicker than a T410.

 

The W510's going to be about the same size as a T510, but a full-sized 15.4" notebook is going to be a pain and a half when used on a plane. This is one of the reasons why many heavy business travelers will go for something like an X-series... it's got a much smaller footprint and is considerably lighter.

If you need the heavy power of the W510 and can't compromise on processor choice, resolution, or graphics, your more mobile needs might be better served by a new netbook or possibly even a used X-series?

 

hmm im still somewhat teetering..

im ordering today like i said probably in 3 hours...

i have narrowed it down to the

w510 with the i7-820QM

8 GB Ram
Regular HD (would buy an SSD aftermarket)


or the T410s
obviously only i5 (damn)
but has the NVS switchable graphics... which is awesome
8GB Ram
Buy after market SSD (unless the one that it comes with is any good)

like i said its honestly like.. an uberkill for me right now.. I know that hte i7-602 and hte i5-540 are so similar its worth getting the 540 and switchable graphics.. If im going to get a 15" might as well be hte w series that is why im not lookn at the t510...

so its down to is the w510 going to have a performance gain.. does that power boost really work?

or is the t410s going to be good (?

i wish the T410 s had a i7-QM option!

 

also with the 9 cell can you actualyl get 5 hours.. like i posted before..?

and like i said no wireless on.. no CD drive turning, ssd drive, very low brightness.. but watching Videos,,, maybe some HD video.

on the w510

 

Don't think the T410 graphics was actually switchable... (or was it?).

 

the new NVS is ..its the T410s..

buit i think after reading it seems that with the 9-cell and turbo mode turned off... you can get 5 hrs..

?? that seems very good (; i think i might go with the w510

 

Don't go with quad core if you want battery life.
see: Notebookcheck: Review Lenovo Thinkpad W510 4319-29G Notebook
The previous generation W500 would last for almost 3 hours with 2 cores so perhaps i7 620 will allow for much more battery time.

 

I have the W510 (Touchscreen, 8GB, 500GB, 9cell)
I only get about 2h20m on the 9 cell while watching videos.
I get about 3h30m to 4h surfing the net with Wifi on.
With an SSD you do get better life, perhaps an extra 20 minutes.
Also the 135w adapter trips the planes power outlets when the laptop is powered up and battery in -so your stuck with either battery only, or you can remove the battery and hope for no power bumps. I recently bought a 90w adapter (much smaller and lighter) and for regular used see no performance drop except for longer battery charging times, but hopefully this combination will allow me to plug into the planes outlets without tripping.

Overall I'm quite surprised that the battery life is so poor. I believe it's not the CPU but the GPU that is the power hog. I wish the w510 had switchable graphics.

 

I have similarly awful battery life with my machine and I use a SSD (though in combination with a 7200rpm drive). A note about the 90w adapter though--when you are using a single core there isn't a performance hit using a 90w adapter, but as soon as the system starts using multiple cores the hit is enormous. And FYI, using a high powered third party adapter (such as a kensington 120w) performs the same way as a 90w.

 

What's the power consumption in windos? Anybody manage to get it below 27W?

 

I get down to about 19/20 watts on battery only (adaptive settings) with a readable brightness (10), and a true minimum of 16 with brightness of 1, but only down to about 27 if not 30 watts plugged in even if the battery is fully charged.

 

Get the mediabay battery. You don't need the optical drive if you remember to copy your stuff to your hard drive beforehand.

 

The is no such thing as a mediabay battery for the W510, yes the W500 had it, but not the W510. There is the slice battery which clips onto the bottom of the laptop.

 

What do you use to monitor power consumption?

I've also found out that 9 or 10 on display brightness is ok to work. If you think about it the display on W510 is very bright, I'm thinkig 10/16 is about as bright as max on W500 (FHD screens). Still on 6 cell battery I've only managed 2 hours of surfing.

 

Within Power Manager you switch to Basic and it will show your consumption. I also have an external power monitor which shows about 4 watts more on average (this I assume is the power lost in the power adapter).

I have the multitouch screen which isn't as bright, so 10 is about the lowest I would want to go.

 

Oh, I guess a setting o 7/16 (or less) on mine might still be readable in some situations like working at night. Thought it doesn't really lower the power consumption that much 1/16 - 26 Watt, 8/16 - 28 Watt, max brightness - 32 Watt. Sometimes it goes down to 17 or 19 Watt (noticeable because fans go silent) but only for very short periods of time.

So perhaps switchable graphics in W500 weren't as bad because at least Intel card was able to limit power consumption to something about 22 Watt (as far as I remember)

With a lowered brightness I've got the Power Manager report 2 hours left on battery but thats it I guess. It won't last a 90 minute probably. I'd be happy to hear how to make it last longer.

 

Wow, actually the battery firmware fixed the batter capacity issue. I though I had this update with Power Manager but actually didn't, Lenovo Toolbox gave me a useful hint. I don't know if it was just displayed battery time but now it shows at least two hours when I disconnect the power adapter. Also total charge capacity shows 54,50 Wh instead of 44,50 Wh (before firmware upgrade)

I guess it will still be worse than Core 2 Due processor with 35 W TDP but I it seems sufficent for me now

 

I just received my W510 and that is a big brick. I travel a lot and am thinking of doing the same thing. Do you see any performance degradation with the 90w adapter if you are doing any CPU intensive operations?