Vaio SR and FW battery questions

Hey guys! Just got a couple of questions... well, more like a good amount of questions

1. What are the physical difference (dimensions) of the SR's regular capacity (6 cell) battery and the large capacity (9 cell) battery? Pictures would be greatly appreciated!

2. How much battery life does the SR (with integrated ATI graphics) get with both the 6 cell and the 9 cell? I've read a lot of reviews/comments with differences in battery lives from 2 hours to 6 hours, however I am unsure which graphics card that SR had. Plus, Sony's "estimations" are usually fluctuated.

3. Regarding the FW with an Intel integrated graphics card, what is the usual average battery life for a 6 cell battery?

4. Will cleaning up both laptop's bloatware greatly affect the system's battery life? By how much?

5. Regarding the news about Sony's battery leakage recalls, what's the percentage that I, if I buy a Sony laptop, get a deficient battery?

 

Although I don't own a Sony SR notebook yet, I will try to give you some general information to answer your questions. Those who do own the notebook can follow with their thoughts and realizations.

1) Can't help ya here, sorry.

2) With the ATI GPU, you can expect a standard 6 cell usually to net somewhere between 3 to 4 hours of standard usage with the correct power management settings. The 9 cell would push closer to the around the 5 hour area. I never really take what the manufacturer says because there is no real true testing method and most manufacturers will sit there and turn everything down or off and let it sit idle so that they can claim the X number of hours. In other words, take the 6 hour statement from the Sony website with the proverbial grain of salt.

3) Again, expect somewhere around the 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hour area depending on power management settings and usage.

4) Yes and no. While cleaning off the bloatware or doing a clean install from an OEM disc will help to optimize the performance as well as reduce tasks running in the background, the battery improvement from doing so would be minimal (a few minutes at most). Your hard drive, optical drive, and screen typically are the biggest culprits behind power drain. That being said, I would still recommend it for the performance aspect enhancement that you as the end user will experience.

5) Usually, by the time a company announces a recall, they have already isolated and fixed the problem in the manufacturering process. Why issue a recall and continue to sell the defective part. Also, most recalls are based on batch part orders. This is why the manufacturer can have a recall and generally state about what time interval is affected and which units this pertains to. So, to answer your question, I don't think you would receive a defective battery. That being said, Sony's are more notable for some type of battery issue in the past history, so there is always a risk you may have something wrong, but then again all notebooks are like that to some extend. To that point I would also like to say that Sony is fairly good to owning up to a problem once a defective issue is known and isolated and I have found that the few times I have had to face a recall with them, they were very easy and quick to deal with the rectify the problem either with a replacement part or a new unit entirely.

Hope this helps.

BBGus

 

I thought the recent recall did not involve sony machines, just sony batteries for other laptop makers?

 

Yeah.. that is true.

 

The 6 hours estimate from Sony is for SR with the Intel IGP, many users have reported battery life of over 5 hours and close to 6 hours with the 6-cell battery and the Intel IGP.. and over 8 hours of battery life with the 9-cell.

I have the ATI card, and I get at least 3 hours and 30 minutes of battery life from a my 6-cell battery, this is on 6/8 brightness, Vista running Aero and Sidebar, internet browsing, and usually have itunes playing music thur headphones. the Sony estimate for SR with the ATI card is 4 hours.
So i would say the estimates are pretty accurate.

 

Thanks for all the answers, guys!

I'm still debating if, that I get an SR, I should get the integrated graphics for more battery life or the dedicated graphics for the hdmi input. I'm not going to be playing games, but I'm going to be hooking up the laptop to a plasma for movie nights and stuff.