X230t battery options

I'm thinking of getting an X230t with the 3-cell battery, but I can't find any info that would give me some idea of what to expect from it. If (a big if?) it can run for about half the time of the 6-cell, that would (might?) be around 4 hours of light-to-moderate use. This would be fine for how I'd use it most of the time, and for longer outings I think I'd rather have the slice battery than the fat and ugly 6-cell.

Questions:

1. How long might the 3-cell last, given the type of usage that gets ~8 hours with the 6-cell?
2. Does the 3-cell fit flush against the chassis? (the reason I dislike the 6-cell is because of how far it sticks out from both the back and the bottom)
3. How much weight and size does the slice battery add?
4. Can anyone find the slice battery in the options provided when customizing an X230t? There's a 9-cell option under "Power accessories", but it's not a slice.

 

1) Given the 3 cell should be half the 6 cell, probably 5-6 hours LIGHT use. My X220 tablet gets 10 hours on 6 cell, 63 WHr, so ~5-6 hours.
2) Yes the 3 cell sits flush.
3) I think the slice is like 1 pound?
4) They may have removed slice, but the X220/X220t slice will work.

ThinkPad Battery 19+ (6 Cell Slice - X220, X220T) | 0A36280 | Lenovo (US)

 

The ThinkPad Battery 44++ (9 cell) features:

Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) technology
9 cell system battery
Battery energy (Watt-hours): 94 Wh
Compatible with the ThinkPad External Battery Charger (40Y7625)

 

This battery is for the normal X220/X230.

 

correct seems like a mistake in x220t config options you can select this yet the slice battery is nowhere to be found.

 

Hopefully we can purchase the 3 cell battery separately soon, I'm kind of kicking myself right now for choosing the 6-cell

 

I had my rep add a 3cell to my order then had her remove it. So I think you could order one now.

 

Are you sure your X220T gets 10 hours with a 6 cell 63Wh battery? I mean realistically, an i5 LV sandy bridge laptop with dimmed screen uses about 7W on idle. That would be 63/7=9 hours with your battery, and this is being very optimistic doing absolutely nothing. I'm having a hard time that your tablet with a wacom screen can go low as 6W per hour.

A normal sandybridge 12-13" laptop typically uses 10W with light internet surfing or word processing. That means 63Wh battery will last 6 hours. Now with half the size 3 cell assuming it is 31.5Wh battery, it will last less than 3 hours, and not exactly the half. This is because the faster you drain (per cell), the energy efficiency goes lower.

Another thing to consider is that because the battery capacity is smaller, you will deep cycle it even more often reducing the life of the battery much sooner than a 6 cell. That's why it's not really a good idea to go with a smaller battery unless you absolutely need the portability.

I wish X230T did a major redesign to get rid of the fugly 6 cell battery, and also fix the damn wacom digitizer on the edge problem. (Don't know if it's been fixed or not)

 

My X220 tablet has an SSD, I can get 5.5 watts on just idle. 6.5 watts on light use (completely dimmed, wifi, browsing forums). Commander Wolf also has wattage around mine, isn't too out of the question.

 

I also have SSDs on all my laptops. Intel X25-m 80GB, and Samsung 470 256GB. Even then, SSD shaves off no more than 1W compared to HDD. I don't know, it's hard to believe 6.5W figures on light usage.

I had the X220T for couple weeks at the time it was introduced, and the screen being both a touchscreen and digitizer screen, it used way more power than a normal laptop. I remember X220 laptop with i7 was using about 6W on idle while X220T was close to 10W. How the heck can you get 5.5W? Do you have tiny amount of RAM (like 2 GB)? I had 8GB RAM, that might be the difference.

Did you ever try a battery run down test, and not just looking at the battery gauge readings?