Battery Life up to 4.5 hours?

Javier-
Read my post. I was guessing at 9 bars. I didn't have the laptop infront of me. I don't have the 160, and if you read my previous post, I did mention that you do have the LED version and therefor the reason why you could have such better battery life.

 

I too consider the SZ at full brightness (or even near it) too bright for my likes. I normally use it at 3-4 bars, even when plugged. I own a SZ110 and I get between 3.5 and 4.5 hours always with it on a full charge. This is with WiFi and sound on all the time (everything else is off).

 

i dont even get 2.5 watching a dvd with all wireless stuff off and the brightness down. playing a ripped to hardrive movie i get a touch longer but not a huge amount.

 

Another update-called Sony again yesterday. Still no callback to me.They say now to give it 48hours for callback.

 

Sony never called but I did call them. They offered me a solution. I'll let you know in a few days if that solution works.

 

what was the solution

 

I'll wait on giving an answer. Its more of a patch than an actual fix.

I'm still ticked that they never called me and I had to keep calling them.

Fidodido/Javier- I still can't see how you can use the laptop at 3-4 bars. Only time where I can sorta use it that low is in a dark room. Then again, maybe I'm just getting old. lol. OR Fidodido, do you have one of the LED screens too? Maybe its the LED screens that are "da bomb".

 

Starstreak, I believe they both have LED backlit screens.

I do too and can confirm it is bright enough to burn your retina's off at full brightness.

I can comfortably use the screen at lower settings. Unless the ambient environment is very bright (direct sunlight for example).

 

I own a SZ110 and it doesn't have LED backlighting.

 

At 3-4 bars, brightness is good enough on an sz160 and most likely not enough on a non premium.

 

I don't know if it's possible where you live starstreak, but if you could see the SZ110/120 next to a premium SZ160, all your brightness questions would be answered immediately. I had a VAIO SZ110 in February. When I went to a Fry's here in LA and saw the 110 sitting next to a 160, I immediately returned my 110 to BestBuy and bought a 160 from the local SonyStyle store. For the $500 difference between the two, for me (I wanted a laptop with a REALLY nice screen, after owning a ThinkPad T42 with washed out, dull colors) it wasn't much of a decision at all. The screen is THAT nice... For comparison's sake, my screen at 5 (out of 8) bars is pretty much equivalent in brightness to my old 110 at full brightness.

Javier

 

ic. Hawaii is bad. Only bestbuy and compusa. So no sz160

 

I am sooo friggen ticked off at Sony. They said last week (and this is where I didnt want to mention anything till it happened) that they will send me a spare battery to take care of the battery issue. Well guess what? I called back today to see when it was coming in and the person what like, we didn't say we were going to send you another one. After arguing with him about it, he then tells me they were going to look into it. Well lucky me I recorded the previous phone call that says the new battery is coming in 2-3 days. He couldn't garantee me a spare. I got transferd around 3 times before being hung up on. Since I had to go to work, I couldn't call them back. I am so gonna find a way to return this. But I have a feeling that Compusa will just credit me back at their store. Meaning no sz160. We'll see if they even take it back at this point.

 

I returned it and got another. They wouldn't let me return it without trying one more.
Well its still charging. What I can say so far (and this is nothing new) There is moderate light leakage, No dead Pixels, and electrical shock on the metalic part.

 

Well new unit has the same battery issue too. From 100% charged I turned on the unit. By the time I got into windows, I was down to 94% within 3 mins of not really doing anything(just internet) I was down to 89-90%. And staying with this thread, same electrical issue.

update: aww shoot. Like I didn't seee this coming. Even if I they gave me back my money the two Sony stores in CA ran out of the sz160 yesterday. So I couldnt mail-order it from them.

 

is there a way to calaberate teh battery

 

normally thats cycling the battery 3 times. But that didnt work with the last unit.

 

How do you turn off all this stuff like Bluetooth and DVD?

 

Well for starters I know BT is normally turned off and you can control it via the software. As for the DVD drive, Sony has a power optimization(sp) software that will allow it to turn off things like DVD/audio/modem/nic card/wifi/ etc.

Btw, I returned my sz120.

 

what do you have now?

 

how do u switch between the two graphic cards?

 

You're kidding right ?
Do you ever read any manuals?

Check the switch on your laptop: Stamina (Intel GMA950) / Speed (nvidia 7400)

 

I just wanted to add to this thread with my battery life marks, as I am new proud owner of a sz160p/c. Some intial tests give me just about 4.5 hours of doing web surfing. This is with screen brightness two notches from the top. Another number I just recently got was 3:45 watching a dvd. This was again with screen brightness two from the top, volume all the way up, and all other unessary functions off (like wifi, bluetooth, camera, firewire, etc.) Now this is all done with the started battery. I don't know why some our getting such a short battery life.

I had the m1210 with the 9 cell and it got close to these numbers. I can't wait to snag a 9 cell for the sony and see what happens. By the way I have found a bunch of places where you can get extended non-oem batteries for the sz series at pretty cheap. Typically about 130-90 for the 9 cell (kind of). the battery are measured at 7200aHm. Whereas the sony exteneded is 7800. So there is a slight power difference but you should easily pick up another 1:45 or 2 hours using the "knock off" extended batteries, plus for almost a third of the price in some incidence you could pick up a couple

batteryvalues.com has them for 130 and a search on ebay for the extended battery model number VGP-BPL2C, showed a number of compatible extended life batteries for cheap. some read 7200 and others read 6600. so while obviously this isn't as much as the 7800 for the sony extended it is a hell of alot cheaper and will extend the power .

 

So buying Premium with LED screen seem to waste money. If I never use laptop outdoor I would rather get the standard model. After some years, it is difficult to find such a screen to replace old one in case it is broken.

 

I get five hours with optimization and Notebook Hardware Control.
And level four brightness and stamina mode.

 

My battery has got 4:45 minutes when it is fully charged.