optical bay batteries

Hey everyone,

I love the concept of being able to stick a battery in the optical bay, but am curious on their actual results.

How much more time do you get on battery with the optical bay battery in?

And will there be any more new models with integrated graphics or at least without the x1600 from asus with the hot-swappable bay? I can't find any.

Thanks in advance.

 

you can get about 1.75 hours most i think out of a optical battery. asus is pretty much moving away from this feature on their built on series. so i think your going to be seeing this on their higher models which have a dedicated GPU. Its a shame to its a great feature.

 

The 39Wh optical bay battery gives almost an extra 2 hours of battery life for my Z70Va.

Lower power consuming notebooks get better results obviously, the 48Wh Dell optical bay batteries adds 3 hours for the Inspiron 600m and Latitude D600 and D610.

The best thing would be for more notebook manufacturers to implement hybrid graphics like on the Sony SZ and certain Uniwill's. I'm pretty sure the Z70a with integrated graphics would get 7-8 hours with both batteries versus the 5.5 hours I could get with my Z70Va.

 

Could someone explain more about this 'optical bay battery' feature to me? do you take out your optical drive and replace it with a battery?

 

absolutely correct, you just flick a latch on the bottom of the chassis and pull the drive out and insert the battery into the optical bay.

I must admit the Dell optical battery I have used before in the Latitude, must have been larger and or higher rating because it added approx 3-4hrs extra, where as the Asus gives about an hour and a half (thats just a guess for now) hopefully this week I will be able to test and give you some times.

I hope they keep this feature in other models, I think it is great and was one main reason for buying the W3J over the V6, I also have the HDD adapter where you pug your laptop HDD into an adaptor that slots into the optical drive, I currently have 2 x 100gb 5400rpm drives in a 14'' laptop!! its great.

 

I love my optical bay battery in my W3J its just so perfect. It lets me use more power for my 3D program without worrying about running out of juice unplugged. It swaps out in 5 seconds and it hot swaps just fine (swaps out while running). I figure it adds about 1h 45m to my total battery time which is very very nice. It does add a little weight but nothing that I could care about. I don't think I will ever buy a laptop in the future without a swappable optical bay battery.

 

I fully agree, and I hope they develop it and use it in other models as well, because the same setup I used in the Dell Latitude gave me a lot more extra time, It was deffinitely a major draw card for me.

 

Is W3V optical bay battery compatible with W3j??

 

I think it is. http://www.proportable.com/detail.aspx?ID=108 "Optional 3600mAh (6 Cell) Battery for Optical Bay for W3v/j"

 

3 hours max for most models. 2 hours i guess would be average.