E6400 6-cell vs 9-cell battery

Greg, how's the backlit keyboard...?

 

Don't start with me...

Its nice...for an occasional extra.

 

Hi All,

I'm about to purchase my new Dell E6400 and wondering whether to take it with a 6 or 9 cell battery. As I will mainly use wifi most of the time and some photoshop usage for editing photos and minor video editing and it will serve me for both work & personal use, I'll be looking for good battery performance. I can get the 9cell for a minor extra of around 20$ so it worth the money.
What I do concern is the extra weight of 0.6lbs and size at the back of the laptop.

I'd like to get your recommendations with both 6 and 9 cell batteries.
Could you also point out what's the battery life you get with both batteries?

This is the setup I'm about to purchase:
Dell Latitude E6400
Intel Core 2 Duo P8600(2.4GHz-1066MHz/3Mb)
Nvidia Quadro NVS 160M 256MB
250GB, 7200RPM HD
DVD+/-RW 8X DVD
14.1" (1440X900) WXGA+ With Backlit
4GB 800MHz SDRAM DDR2
DELL Wlan 1397 (802.11 b/g)
Bluetooth Vista 370
Integrated Camera 0.3Mb
Integrated Microphone
Vista Business x32 Eng

Thanks a lot in advance!
lelchuk.

 

If you don't play games on it, you should consider the intel graphics choice. With that and a 6-cell battery, you should be able to get between 5 and 6 hours if you're careful with backlighting, and you're only doing light browsing.

The 9 cell is 1.5 to 1.6 times the capacity of the 6-cell. With the Nvidia card, I would expect the 6 cell to give you about 4.5 hours of battery life if you're running your LCD at low brightness and you're careful with your settings.

 

does that little battery meter light up under the battery? i thought it was supposed to but mine doesnt apparently.

 

You run a finger over the LED's, and they will light up to show state of charge.

 

4GB does not go with Vista 32-bit.
You need Vista 64-bit. Else not only you trough away the money spent on a 64-bit CPU by locking it down to 32-bit, but you cut your RAM from 3.2-3.5GB of RAM. When Linux, Vista, MacOS 32-bit says "Support 4GB of RAM", it means it will BOOT... that's it. To actually use it, you need 64-bit OS. If you don't use old peripheral or specialized software, you will enjoy Vista 64-bit. I have 2 test desktop system here, I found Vista 64-bit more polished.. but that it just my personal opinion.. I have no fact.

As for the video card... it depends on what you plan to do with your system. The Quadro should make you lose about 30min of battery life over the Intel. Personally I find it worth the sacrifice... but I play the latest games on my system. If you don't game or CAD, or really need every minutes out of your machine, then the Intel video card is the way to go.

 

Dell specs list the weights as 0.33kg (6 cell) and 0.51kg (9 cell), so the weight difference is 0.18kg. My E6400 (Intel GPU) with 6 cell weighs 2.31kg so the 9 cell would push it up to 2.49kg.

I have to push hard on the area at one end of the lights.

John

 

Wow! Thanks for all the great input guys!

Regarding the GPU, I'll stay with NVidia Quadro as I'll be doing various photo/video/few 3D graphics editing and I guess some gaming LOL

I know about the Vista-64bit which will support my 4 Gigs. For now I'll use either XP Pro or Vista, later on I'll might setup another partition with either linux, MacOS or Vista-64. Either way I need more than 2GB and 4GB was my only upgrade option to I'll better stick with it.
I read through the forum and many of you recommended Vista over XP in terms of drivers compatibility. Is it indeed a better option than XP?

Regarding the weight, I guess that with my setup it will weight around 2.3kg with 6-cell and around 2.5/6 with a 9-cell battery. As I already got the 9cell included in my spec and I'll get a minor quote decrease if I change to 6cell, I think I'll be better of with the 9cell. As I'm also an amature/semi-pro photographer I'll be carrying my laptop on a proper LowePro bag which will include all my photo equipment plus the laptop. Then I guess an extra of 200-300gr will be somewhat minor.

What I did wanted to know if anyone had any bad experience with either the 6 or 9 cell batteries especially in terms of usability & comfort.

Thanks again,
lelchuk.

 

I've got two E6400s, one that I use for work and one for home/personal use. My work setup has the the P9500 processor, nVIDIA graphics, WXGA+ LED and 7200rpm hard drive with 9-cell battery. The home setup has the P8600, Intel graphics, WXGA+ LED and 7200rpm hard drive with 6-cell battery.

The 9-cell battery weighs exactly 0.4lbs more than the 6-cell, which translates to 0.18kg as John stated above! The 6-cell fits flush to the back of the system, while the 9-cell extends about 3/4-inch (1.75cm) from the back of the system. It's one of the least obtrusive high-capacity batteries I've ever seen.

The 9-cell battery is what I'd suggest to anyone who thinks they might need/want it. The 9-cell costs $189 or so after the fact, but it's only $69 to upgrade when order the system.