Dell Vostro 1720 power consumption

Hi there,

I am looking for a laptop with a matte display (at least 15.4'') and low power consumption, and so far I've selected these ones:

- Latitude E5500 (WXGA anti-glare)
- Latitude E6500 (Led backlit)
- Vostro 1720 (WXGA anti-glare)

(always with P8600)

I really like the Vostro 1720 features, but I am a bit worried about its power consumption (having a 17'' display, a NVIDIA video card, ...). There are very complete reviews for both Latitude models here:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Dell-Latitude-E6500-Notebook.11958.0.html

But I've been unable to find the same for Vostro 1720. So the question is: someone having this laptop could say something about its power consumption/battery life? Is there much difference with a Latitude?

thanks!

 

It's probably not going to be too good. Vostros are cheaper machines, so costs have to be cut. One of those places will probably be with the battery. It also depends on what battery you're getting (6 cell, 8 cell, 9 cell), and what you're going to be doing.

I'd say that the 1720 could last 2.5 hours on average, not doing anything too intense.

The E6500 will last the longest, followed by the E5500, followed by the 1720.

 

I think the Vostro 1720 is too new for a significant number of people to have it yet. What you can do is take a look at other 17" laptops with similar specs and see how they fair on battery life. I'd say battery life on the 1720 should be comparable with that of the Studio 17, if configured similarly.

Dell claims "up to 4 hours" on a Studio 17, so I imagine you could get close with a properly spec'd 1720.

 

Thank you for your advices. I checked Dell Studio 17 and Dell Vostro 1710 and power consumption results are much worse than Latitude models:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Dell-Studio-17-Notebook.10802.0.html

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Dell-Vostro-1710-Notebook.11052.0.html

I guess I will have to decide between the E5500 and E6500. By the way, does the E6500's display 1440x900 with LED backlit make a difference from the default (1280x800) LED? I guess both are matte display, aren't they?

 

Looking at the Vostro 1720 right now. You can upgrade to a 9-cell battery for only $50. Hope this helps.

 

In fact, I am not interested in how long the battery lasts, but in the actual power consumption of the computer, the reason is that I life with solar panel energy.

Anyway, I finally bought a Latitude E6500 (which should be arriving this week), not a 17' laptop but the LED TFT seems nice.

 

Good choice. The E6500 could probably run around 10W on minimal usage, if what other users on this forum have reported are to be accurate.

 

I hope you chose the Intel GPU which uses less power.

John