Vaio SA3 with sheet battery

I am going to post a full review shortly....

I have my Sony Vaio SA3 series laptop 8GB RAM 750GB hard drive hybrid graphics and you know the rest.

I got the sheet battery connected tot he laptop. I charged them overnight. When i first turned on the computer the battery meter showed 100% for both batteries and it states a run time of 8.5 hours.

I opened up Internet Explorer to browse the web and check email. Only 10 minutes passed not it reads 4 hours battery life remaining.

AFTER only 10 minutes.... How can it go from 8.5 hours to 3 hours... can anyone explain this to me or should I ship this thing back and look for a new computer. I need to know soon.

Thanks.

 

It's real world battery life sucks. However, expect at least 6 hours of useage with the sheet battery installed (though it's one fat pig with the sheet battery).

 

You probably have the dedicated graphics running (if your switch is on 'Speed' vs. 'Stamina), as that will drain battery and lower the predicted remaining battery life. You'll want to switch it to 'Stamina' which uses integrated graphics and saves battery life.

Additionally, your brightness might be pretty high. To get prescribed high values of battery life, you need to turn down your brightness.

Finally, make sure you don't have too many programs running. Just check with Ctrl+alt+del for task manager, see the number of processes, etc. You might also want to remove startup processes etc.

 

Damn.. maybe I should have gotten a MAC Book PRO... however for the power that this system has it may be worth it to keep it. I looked at one of the asus laptops however the hard drive would have been a beast to upgrade. (having to practaclly dismantle the Asus to do a upgrade.. anyway I am running it through some tests now and will post the review by tomorrow night.

 

Ehhh... only the ASUS U36SD and U31SD had the battery life I was looking for (based on a coworker's U31SD, admittedly). I know a few MBP15 and 13 owners, none of them get the rated battery life in real use (web/office).

 

Just an observation, without data to back it up, but I've been finding the great battery life claims from SB/HD architecture have generally failed to occur IRL. Of course, battery life, like gas mileage, not only "may vary," but also is routinely exaggerated by both manufacturers and owners, and it's been true since DTR laptops with powerful C2Ds got 45 mins. of a published 3 hours. Just seems like the manufacturer-published and even professional review-reported battery life numbers from SB Core i5s and dual core i7s have overshot "honest" owners experiences by the same 40%-80% they always have, and that means none of them are getting "all day" battery usage without an auxiliary battery - or even with one.

Or are there some people who have their machines so well optimized and are careful to close windows and kill processes, and they are getting closer to the publicized numbers.

i guess I have a new goal for my next ideal:

1) the weight, screen and overall performance of a Z2
2) internal graphics equiv. to 8,000 3dmark06
3) on-board audio that can suffice for two people watching a movie in a hotel room.
4) true 8 hour battery life with all cylinders firing

I realize we're a few years away but, hey, a person has to have dreams, right?

 

I'll also guess Windows 8 *may* help, with it's focus on helping battery life of Win8 tablets (the suspend to RAM for programs, in particular).

 

Alas you may be right on all counts. Its a shame.... The Asus that you mention caught my eye however the fact that you have to practically dismantle the laptop to change your hard drive is a major turn off. Why is everyone trying to copy or be like Apple with all these sealed off can't access or difficlut to access parts.... Don't these companies know that even the not so tech savy users perfer the ability to upgrade their own parts....

 

I dont think ASUS is deliberately trying to make your life hard, here; just it's easier to make a small laptop without having to design easy access doors all over. I dunno, reallly, though