Battery life

Hello again,

I was wondering if anyone could tell me an estimated battery life? I want to get the XPS 1730 for college, and I might have like 3 hours of classes in a row, and do not want it to die, how long does the battery last?

 

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4085

According to NBR's review, battery life is 1 hour. This kind of information is readily available on NBR.

 

The battery life on the M1730 is not great. I don't have an estimated battery life but I can tell you that with 3 hours of classes in a row, I suggest you find a seat next to a power outlet.

 

Also of note, having a 17" desktop replacement as a class companion is a touch thing to make work. I have tried bringing my m9750 to class a few times and the added weight and table space it takes up really don't make it work well for taking notes on...

If I were you I would think about investing $300-$500 in an UMPC to bring to class and the library for things like MS Office, Web Browsing, Skype, MSN, etc.

Hope this helps!

 

What battery do you have? I heard that if you use the 9-ion battery you can get a few hours on lowest settings.

 

I have a 12 Cell in my AW... and for me I can get 1 hr. 45 mins. With brightness just over half on Power Saver mode just using MS Office and Firefox...

Also, I have a Single 7950 GTX and a single HD, if that helps you figure out what demand my hardware is making on the battery.

 

The thing about lowest settings, is that your Screen and your GPU are your main battery users. The brightness of your screen is really important here, but even on Power Saver mode, your GPU still takes a decent amount of power draw. The price of high performance (still overall WELL worth it ).

 

Can you shut down your GPU on this, so that it wont take up that much?

Also I'm only getting the 512, not the 1gig GPU if that helps.

 

The M1730 w/ 9 cell lasted only 1:30 running the MobileMark 2005 Office productivity (microsoft office applications) battery life test .

 

You need the GPU to view things and not that I know of you can't turn it off. If you are looking for a system for college I suggest you get something else. Much smaller and longer battery life. I bought a pretty decent gaming Inspiron 9300 a few years back for college and I would not even consider bringing that to class and lugging it around all day. Here in UT Austin we have to walk ALOT so I stuck with a much smaller laptop. I had the Latitude X300 and that thing was GREAT for college. You will find that your priorities will change when you get into college that you won't be playing much games anymore. I gave the X300 to my sister who is also entering college and went with the M1330. Even then I wish I had the 8 hour battery life of the X300.

 

Well the dell support person said using it for general things I should get 5-7.7 hours, which I doubt. If not I will just keep getting replacement batteries from tech support.

 

lol, 5-7.7 hours on the m1730...man i love dell support.

 

hahaha constantly switching batteries is not going to get you 5-7.7 hours. Hell I don't even think two high capacity batteries will get you 7.7 hours.

 

the way to get 7.7 hours on the m1730: run on AC for 6:30, then run on battery for the remaining 1:15

 

Of course .

 

You don't want a 17'' laptop for going to class . . . I thought 15.4 was too big to carry around.

I can get around 3 out of my 1420 with the 8400m card. When my 1520 had the x3100 card I got an estimated 5-6 hours out of it.

 

I should be all right, it's not 100% for class, and worse comes to worse I just replace it with another machine.

 

How many cells did that battery have?? 12? Cause that sounds like a lot of time. To get that much out of a 15" would be very nice...

 

I might need one of those sexy batteries.

 

It's not a sexy battery, it's the integrated graphics (X3100) that allowed him to get 5-6 hours of battery life.

 

Woops I'm half retarded tonight, I didn't read the whole sentence.

 

It seems like you are pretty set on getting that XPS M1730. Pretty much anyone in college is going to tell you to get something else. I thought the same way and was wrong and have regretted my purchase. If you are actually going to lug the laptop around all day and use it in class, I suggest you get something else. Especially not the M1730 the powerhouse that it is. You seriously are gonna get about 1 hour of battery life which is about one class. Portability is the most important factor when purchasing a laptop for college in my opinion. All friends with 15in laptops complain about how big and heavy it is. Now imagine a 17in beast. Sure 8lbs may seem like nothing in your back but once you try it out its different. I can distinctly notice a difference between 5 and 3.5lbs after walking around all day.

 

Thanks for your imput. I am planning on buying it before college starts, test the battery out myself, and if it sucks, I will downgrade to a 15.4, or smaller.I want something that will last 4-5 years, and wont be to out of date and crappy. My schedules are not that bad. Carrying around a 10 pound laptop for like 5 minutes of walking wont be to bad.

 

Well keep in mind any computer after 4-5 years will be outdated anyways. It has been about 3 years since my Inspiron 9300 purchase which was basically maxed out at the time and now can barely hold up to the newer games.

 

I want something that will last, something that wont break down after a year or 2, that I will have to replace anyways. I just want something that will be able to do all of my needs. Gaming, programming, photo editing, internet, general, etc, pretty fast. I do not want ****, I am really annoyed by slow crappy computers. I would probably get something for a lower price, but I want this to be my comp for 4-5 years of college.

 

You might want to take a look at other laptop manufacturers (Sony, HP, Asus, etc) that already have models with the new Nvidia 9 series GPU.

 

As others have mentioned, if you buy a 17 inch laptop, you will NOT be taking that to class with you. Its simply too big. Its not just the weight, but opening that thing up on a college desk is distracting and I can't imagine anyone doing it consistently. Taking my 15.4" to class was the max I was willing to go. I just got a m1330, and its perfect!

Its your money, your laptop, but I promise you, you will not be taking a 17" to class for more than a week. I haven't seen a single person bring a 17" to class my last 4 years in undergrad + 1 current year in grad school.

 

I saw one person with a M1710 once ... LOL ... but he never brought it again.

 

I'd just like to reinforce the point that if you are taking your laptop to class 17" is absolutely not the way to go. I know you think its manageable now but trust me it'll be come a pain REAL fast. If you are set on something to game on and something for class, get a desktop and then a cheap ultraportable.

 

Used it yesterday on battery, CPU undervolted to 1V, ran 1h 32 minutes. Max lcd brightness
I`m sure I can get more.

If I force the CPU at 600Mhz(which is more than enough for basic stuff) and maybe lower the brightness I`ll get over 2 hours.
I`ll have to test this.

 

I think part of it for me, part of the reason I don't carry my m9750 around to class too is that it was such an investment that I was practically paranoid anywhere I brought it! XD It sounds silly, but really carrying a desktop replacement around will make you feel defensive of everyone else around... at least it did to me... >.<

 

There are also others who carry around very expensive pieces of equipment around campus as well, or atleast at my school they do. I have even seen some drive Lamborghini's and Ferrari's. I personally wear a $2500 watch and my roommate wears one that is $3500, not to mention I have seen others with much more expensive watches in the tens of thousands. So don't worry too much about the laptop but more about school. And the watch was a better investment than my laptop in my opinion, it has gained in value over the past few years compared to computers which are always going down in value. No such thing as a collectible computer =). I do have several Pentium 1 computers and even a 386 one.