Why are Dell batteries so bad when compared to APPLE

First of all I'm not trolling. If you check my posts you can see that i am a long time dell fan and user.

Second of all im not even talking about run time. That is a Microsoft and Intel problem.

My main concern is that im currently using a two year old XPS l501x with a 1 year old battery that only lasts for 20 minutes maximum. I had similar problems with my M1330 where I also ran through a few batteries.

All my friends with macbooks have decent enough battery life. Fair enough I'm not one of those people who religiously follows "battery wear" prophylaxis rules but this is a shambles.

Any idea what the problem is. Is it something to do with the chemicals used on them :S Im in the marker for a new laptop and if they release the xps 14 Ubook with a touchscreen it would be the perfect machine.

Cheers, again I am not TROLLING.

 

I think it may be industry wide... In two years I am on my second battery for my Asus G73, and I do follow the "rules" . Ironically my 5 year old Dell D610 is still on the stock battery I must have charged and discharged at least 400 times. I recently learned that running games (or other intense tasks) on battery can shorten life, I only surf the net and do email on battery.

 

It's industry wide. Apple, and I think Sony and maybe Lenovo (don't hold me to those two, I don't remember) uses a chip to carefully measure the current going to each battery cell and makes minute changes to the voltage depending on the state of the battery, it's essentially wear leveling for batteries. So say cell 4 was running a bit warmer than the rest, it would reduce the current to that one a little to make sure it doesn't wear out fast. That allows Apple batteries to last up to 1000 charge cycles before getting reduced to 80% of their capacity, vs about 300 for most batteries in the industry. So a regular battery may hit 80% in a year, 64% in two years, etc, while the Apple one would take three years to hit 80.

That said, user habits are also part of it, my over three year old Dell Studio 15 still lasts two hours video playback on the original battery. With lithium ion batteries, too many full cycles kill them early, better to have partial charges and discharges most of the time, unlike older nickel batteries. The advice many people give is sometimes not up to date with the new type of battery we all use.

 

You're kidding, right? Every time you see one of those "comparisons" on Youtube or on a tech blog that compares Safari to Chrome/IE, or the battery length and lifetime on a MacBook to an Envy/XPS, etc. is ridiculous. MacOS and Windows have completely different architectural constructs requiring different measures of power to startup, engage various apps and programs, and process basic tasks. It's not even comparing apples to oranges; it's comparing a tricycle to a motorcycle. Mac OS, and for that matter, iOS are not real operating systems. They're user interfaces for controlling Apple's hardware. Apple is a hardware company, not a software company. Windows is a complete OS, yes, even Windows 8, which is ten times the OS that Mac OS will ever be. Would you compare Belgium to the United States? No. If battery life is important to you, go with the lesser device born in Cupertino. If you plan on actually interacting with society, engaging business and creative minds and the like, then a Windows-based device is the answer. Hope that clears it up for you.

 

I get what you're saying about mac os vs windows os but what im worried about is battery wear more than battery life,

I was happy with the day one battery life, my problem is the the battery life reduces over a year way faster than a macbook.

I have been using this battery for 12.5 months now and the battery wear level is 75%. Im sorry but thats pathetic. I wouldn't mind it but replacements cost £100 ($150) and as far as im aware they arent even replaceable in ultrabooks.

Also even though I'm not a fan of osx I wouldn't say it isn't a proper laptop. From a consumer perspective it does pretty much everything you want it to, so battery comparisons are valid.

 

I've had my XPS L501x laptop with original battery for two years and it's only showing 25% wear. I always made sure to disable battery charging using the dell software. I used the battery quite a bit for a good few months when at uni working on projects.

 

I can't speak for all, but I'm pretty sure the dell hardware has replaceable batteries ... it just takes more work to get to them.

Dell XPS 14 (L421x) Ultrabook Battery Removal and Installation

Now, finding the replacement, that's a different issue.

 

Speaking of those $150 dollar battery replacements, has anyone tried one of the much cheaper ones from ebay? I know batteries may be risky getting from elsewhere, but as long as you make sure they are CE certified it should be safe, and you can get a 9 cell for the Studio 15 for example for $50 instead of 200. Maybe they won't survive as long as the original, but if it makes the laptop livable for another two years that's good enough for me.

 

I've seen fake/cheapo batteries fake those safety labels in the interest in profits.

Why do batteries die? Because they are designed to, they are consumable. If you want a better battery, pray you have a Panasonic one, my T60's old 6 cell Panasonic still held 60% its WHr after 6+ years old.

 

My problems is that the battery life has been bad from the start.
My XPS 1645 lasted about 90min on battery when I first bought it. And that's with screen to lowest brightess, turbo disabled and only browsing.

Now, after 3 years, it still does 60-75min, so I can't complain there... but I see other laptops getting around 7(!!!!) hours on battery, while they're just as fast as my XPS in power-savings mode. They can even play games or watch movies and get over 3 hours.

If I turn on furmark and superpi with 20% battery left it just goes *POOF* - off. Can't even get itself to hibernate .

 

It's not all Dell batteries, my 1647 9 cell still had most of its battery capacity left after 2.5 yrs. It could still go just over 2 hrs on battery but that was using aggressive power savings profiles.

That's a Dell/chipset issue. Was that a 6 cell battery? I think it applies to the entire SXPS 1640 series since they lacked an integrated low power graphics chip and instead always used the discrete power hungry ATI graphics chip, even when the machine was only browsing or sitting idle at the desktop.

 

Yeah, 6 cell. It's already big enough like it is...
Indeed it doesn't have an integrated GPU but it downclocks and downvolts the 4670 to 220/300mhz 0.9v