Vaio TZ350N Battery not as good as TX

Being a long term TX user, I eventually made the switch to the TZ, didn't need blue ray and didn't much care for the chrome sidings on the TT.
It's a lovely little laptop, but I have noticed a few things - mainly the battery is nowhere near Sony's claim of 7 hours. My TX would give me a good useable 4.5-5 hours, this one barely struggles past 3 hours, even with the power management on battery life, screen useably dimmed and the CD/DVD off.
Also, it takes forever to charge..??
The TX screen hinge used to shut with no play, on this one, the screen sort of flops around a bit, maybe a half inch or so, not acceptable on something this expensive..!
Any advice, you guys?

 

Oh and I forgot, is it only my TZ or is the wireless reception very ok at best? Its a poor performer on skype and even in a dead quiet room, it pops a warning saying excessive background noise..where are the mics on this thing anyway?
If I have skype open on my SZ and my TZ, the SZ is super, this one can barely show smooth video or audio..

 

My old TZ also has very weak wireless reception.
About the battery, I had an TZ150N and I got around 5 to 6 hours with it. You must haven't adjust the power setting. If you're using Vista, right click on the battery icon to the right of the taskbar, and then click on "Power Options". A window with a whole bunch of profiles pop up, and allow you to change specific power settings.
Good luck.

 

Hi, is there any way to boost wireless reception? This is actually proving to be a bit of an issue..

 

The only way is to change the wireless adapter setting in the power managing option windows to maximum performance.

 

Yep, that's the only way.

 

Ive done that in both the power saving as well as the Max performance settings. As I said this is not so much of an issue during normal browsing, but quite noticeable whilst using skype.
Also, where would the microphone(s) be located as there is no "hole" for the same on the LCD frame?
And is the LCD hinge play common across the TZ range?

 

I would guess that the holes on the base of the laptop serve as a microphone (or at least one of them). Also, there wasn't any play on the hinge with my TZ.