Personal battery findings - very good!

I just got my M14x r2 today and i love it. What i love more is the ridiclous battery life it gets - being on par with my previous m11x r3.

Ive run a few general tests to show the battery usage through battery bar.

I started with gaming
Gaming – 22W – 25W (med brightness) (EVERYTHING on) – balanced profile (gfx = balanced)
This got around 60 - 75 % performance of that when plugged in. This was tested with diablo 3. It gets 60 fps (maxed) plugged in. and around 40 fps (maxed) on battery. Still highly playable.
I was amazed by this because my old m11x r3 got anywhere from 45W - 60W whilst gaming :O - obviously the new technologies here are helping a lot.

Now some other tests i did -
Word document – 5.5W – 6.5W (EVERYTHING off) – power saving
This is as low as i could get it whilst still using the laptop. Based on this - the laptop will get just under 11 hours battery life :O

From here i added AlienFX
+ AlienFx = 7 – 7.5 W (Lights use 1 – 1.5W)

Then i changed back to my regular balanced mode
+ Balanced mode = stayed the same…

Then i went from lowest brightness to max
+ max brightness = jumped up to 9.5 W (difference between max brightness and lowest is 2W)

Then i turned on wifi and bluetooth and started surfing web - Note - turned my brightness back down to nothing as i am in a dark room
+ Wifi and Bluetooth – surfing web with multitasking between word and chrome. = 10 – 11.5W but generally hovering around 10.5W (

As i type this it is hovering 7.5W - 8W.
This is exceptional !


For those who dont understand these figures. The battery on the m14x is 64.5 Watt hours. (64.5 W/h)
If you take one of those numbers above, say 9W (average useage) and divide 64.5 by it, you get a calculated battery life in hours. 64.5/9 = 7.17 hours doing general stuff. This is generally reflected on the windows battery button. Note these are calculated figures and actual results may vary.

For comparison this is what my R3 got
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/574847-m11x-r3-battery-bar.html#post7625345

I think these are outstanding figures and are on par with what some ultrabooks get today! I came from the m11x r3 which gets great battery life… but all things considered this machine gets unbelieveable battery life, and comes very close to the m11x in every test, except gaming on battery where this machine destroys it. I don’t understand how it does it, but it uses less than half the power the m11x does when gaming. (at least on diablo 3).

Hope this helps

 

rep + ,good info when i received my m14x , I never use my m18x.

 

I agree with jPhantomhives. Ever since I got my M14x, I hardly use my M17x anymore! This is the best balance of power and portability.

+rep on the battery info testing results!

 

11 hours on word processing is rubbish i get about 6-7 hours with everything turned off typing on word lowest brightness aswell.

im pretty sure if it could achieve 11 hours dell would advertise that instead of 6 hours.

 

Well... Its theoretical, not actual. However, i would be interested to see the real life result

 

if you halve all the figures for time you probably be around the actual mark

 

Do you think you would get the same battery life for an r2 but instead of ivy bridge , it had a sandy bridge i5 ? I'm interested in getting a m14x soon and I would really like to know thanks !

 

I think is the same , just depends how you use it , if you max brightness/lowest brightness , alienware FX on/off , gaming/normal browser , watching movies , etc all can be result different battery life spend. With my theory i5 m14x-r2 almost the same as i7 m14x-r2. why don't you go for i7-3610QM , HD4000 is really great also extra 3mb cache is worth it.

I have m11x too , once you go for m14x , you might not going back to 11" anymore lol.

 

Thanks . The reason is cuz I'm buying it off someone d: Also I wouldn't be using the integrated graphics a lot . The only reason I'd get ivy bridge is for less power consumption d:

 

Ivy bridge and integrated graphic HD4000 are related , m14x is using nvidia optimus , while you are not gaming or anything does not require high 3d, it will auto swap to integrated graphic for save battery life.(that's why m14x can last 5-6hour) (well you still can use nvidia gpu manually if you wanted to)

 

I personally believe that the Ivy Bridge processors will give you better battery life.

I think they are more battery-efficient that Sandy Bridge processors.

The battery in the R2 is the exact same as in the R1, so the changes that make the battery life so amazing must concern other components.