false advertising sony vaio f290 battery life

I just bought a sony vaio fw290. I haven't even had it for a week yet. On a fully charged battery, and no programs running it says that I have 2 hours and 24 minutes of battery life. I bought this from the sony site which advertises the standard battery as up to 6 hours, on one page, and up to 5.5 hours on another page, both referring to the same computer.

So I called sony customer service and the guy asked me to read the model number on the back of the battery, which is BPS 13/S. Then he told me that battery has a battery life of 2-3 hours! He tells me that it's the large battery that goes up to 6. Not according to sony.com where I bought the computer! The large battery is listed as up to 8 hours, and the standard battery is listed as 5.5 hours, and 6 hours on another page.

Clearly this is false advertising as the battery I paid for was not delivered, and was instead swapped out with a weaker model of battery.

Surely I can't be the only one??? Does any one know of any consumer protection agency, or attorney that would be interested in helping with this?

 

Do you have an integrated or a dedicated graphics card? I can only imagine getting up to 6 hours on the integrated Intel card and obviously, and it helps to remove the bloatware (check this forum for clean installation tips!) to cut down the # of processes running. On dedicated, especially something as power-hungry as the 3650, I wouldn't expect to get more than 2-3 hours of battery life either. I'm on an SR with the 3470 and the most people have got is around 3.5 hours with dedicated, and close to 5 hours on integrated. The Z gets better battery life with integrated.

Also - just another note - I don't know if it applies to FW's, but on my Sony SR, the battery indicator is wrong. It tells me that I only have something like 2 hours left, and I can stretch that to at least 3 hours.

PS - I don't think any consumer agency can help you. It's not false advertising to say "UP TO 6 hours of battery life" - especially since I'm sure they have their disclaimers on the specific conditions needed to satisfy this. I wouldn't be surprised if you had to have the integrated card, disable wifi, bluetooth, dvd drive, and turn the screen onto the lowest settings (maybe even turn the HDD off), and then not do anything on the laptop at all to achieve 6 hours - but it would be possible. In general, don't blindly trust any battery life estimates given by the manufacturers, the same way you shouldn't get tricked by those large flashy "UP TO 50% OFF!" sale signs.

 

there was actually a recal on batteries lately, though idk if your model was affected.

anyhow, all those battery advertisments are for optimal conditons. turn screen brightness all the way down. turn wireless off. Power-Saving battery plan, no intensive apps, and generally idle conditions.

 

Are sure they didn't say up to 6 hours and that there wasn't a little star next to the time?

EDIT: I checked and the website does say 6 hours standard and 8 hours large capacity battery... Something is amiss here.

 

yes of course, as I said "up to 6 hours on one page, and up to 5.5 hours on another"
But when I put the screen brightness all the way down and have no programs up and running shouldn't I be closer to the 5.5 than 2.5?

right, but when the sony customer support guy KNOWS that the battery I recieved is listed as 2, UP TO 3 hours...
isn't it false advertising to print "up to 6 hours"???

I don't know about the graphics...I can tell you what sony listed as the product I was buying, but clearly that is not necessarily true at all...sony site says I have "Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD with Intel® Clear Video Technology" (so what does that mean?)

thank you

 

it means you have IGP running. 2-3 hours for a new centrino 2 +IGP + standard bat is really bad. can you return it?

 

I think i can return it if I do it fast. Well it says I have to pay for shipping (I probably have to do insured shipping) and that I am responsible for any damage in shipping, "may be" charged a restocking fee, and "damage or missing part" fees also may be charged.

so, IGP does that mean I have the integrated graphics thingie?

So do you think they swapped out the battery for a weaker one since the customer support guy said that the bps13/s battery is only up to 3 hours?

And a second question... I got this fw290 CTO supposedly with a centrino core 2 duo processor P8600, 2.4...and yet the sticker on the outside of the machine says centrino 2, instead of the centrino core 2 duo sticker. What's that about?

thank you

 

Centrino 2 is the name of the chipset, while Core 2 Duo is the name of the processor it belongs to, there isn't anything wrong there. The sticker on the thing usually advertises the chipset(or series) of the processor(ex: AMD Turion, AMD Athlon, Intel Centrino 2, Intel Pentium Dual Core etc.), not the actual processor model type.

It's the same as if you got a dedicated graphics card(this isn't your case), the sticker only advertises what brand it is(Nvidia or ATI) and not the exact model of the graphics chip(ex: 8600M GT or HD3650).

As for the battery issue, I agree that it is kind of odd, but as said before, the 6 hours is obviously in the best conditions. I've heard that some companies even do battery tests on electronics with the screen off and the machine idle(which means no processes running or anything). That means they basically turn it on, leave it there and see how long it lasts. It is somewhat odd that the guy told you your battery only lasts 3 hours, but maybe you should tyr calling again and see if they give you twice the same answer. It's sad, but customer service is sometimes inaccurate and it's been known that they sometimes even contradict themselves.

And IGP is an acronym of "Integrated Graphics Processor" so yes, your HD4500 is an integrated graphics chip and should consume less power.

 

Agreed, most of these tests are not really real world conditions and most people do not get these results. getting up to 3 hours is probably fine, since sony's goal with the FW was for a person to be able to watch an entire blu-ray film on one battery charge.

 

Sony used different spec (probably the lowest spec possible) to achieve 6 hours battery life. As you opted for faster processor, memory, graphic card and better screen (fullHD - double lamp), you will get less and less hours on single charge. Hope this clears the problem.

 

Thank you. I took your advice and called them again. This time the woman told me that the fw290 comes with a standard battery that lasts 1 up to 2 hours! I told her that I purchased the machine from sony.com and that there it says the standard battery is up to 5.5 hours. She went to the site and read what I read and said that I could call back tomorrow morning and talk to teh dept that deals with battery issues and ask them why my "battery is not performing" as it is advertised to. I guess they will tell me that since I have the machine on instead of in sleep mode, 2.4 hours is normal.

I only have a 250gb hard drive and a 2.4 P8600 processor. I didn't get any of the fancy graphics or hd stuff.

thank you

 

The battery life does sound unusually low, especially if you have integrated graphics and you're not doing anything on the laptop. Have you actually let the battery drain to see if the predicted battery life is correct? Leave it idle and time how long it lasts before the battery alarm sounds. Maybe it's the same battery indicator problem as the one with the SR/Z.

Otherwise, I personally would recommend just sending in the battery for repairs or asking for a replacement since that may be covered under warranty. That way, Sony pays shipping both ways and you don't have to eat the shipping costs of returning the product.

 

he mentioned he had the 1600x900 for hte 290 that is not the double lamp one, its the standard eco xbrite.

 

And are you new to these marketing gimmicks?

 

There can be some difference between advertised battery life and real world results. But this is clearly too much.

I think you are right.


Sony Netherlands advertises 140 maximum battery life for the FW-21 Eco model.

 

Well I rarely trust battery life "indications, even from the manufacturer. Fact is that obviously, even assuming what they said was true, it would be in the best optimal battery saving conditions, which obviously are not those which I will using the laptop under.

Therefore, I just go from my personal experience that a laptop battery usually lasts somewhere between 2-4h.

Obviously they should put a * and say that that time is taken in optimal conditions and that circumstances may change depending on your use.

Interestingly enough, on the pre-configured FW models, they say the battery lasts between h to 3h, which is a far more realistic measure.