15R N5110 battery life

I'm eagerly waiting for my refurb N5110 to be delivered by Dell. It will be supplied with the standard 6-cell battery and I am trying to figure out if I will need a 9-cell. The spec. for my unit is a Core i7 2670qm processor and while I know this will eat the battery when it is working hard, especially with the GT 525m GPU on song - battery life could be under an hour, but I'd be interested to know what normal light use (wifi, web browsing, email, word processing) is likely to be with the 6-cell battery.

Also, if watching a movie I presume that the Intel graphics do most of the work and the CPU isn't worked hard?

I'd be grateful to hear about your experiences.

Ian

 

Hi Ifb-online,

My name is Deepa and I work for the Social Media and Community Team at Dell. A 6-cell battery for normal light use will last for approximately 2.5 or 3 hours. As you have mentioned about GPU that indicates your system should have Nvidia graphics card and you can check that as well in the device manager of your system. These are the following steps to go to device manager:-
>Click on start > type devmgmt.msc > device manager will pop up > under the display adaptor you can check whether it is integrated graphics or discrete Nvidia card.

As you have asked about the CPU function, would like to tell you that the CPU keeps on working all the time as it is the unit which processes all the information. In case your system has Nvidia graphics card, It should also have the Nvidia's Optimus Technology. The Optimus technology is designed to maximize performance while minimizing the impact on battery life. You can follow these steps to select a preferred graphics processor:-
1)Open the NVIDIA Control Panel by doing a right click on the desktop
2)Select Manage 3D Settings
3)Under Global Settings tab, you can select the preferred graphic processor
4)In case if you want to assign a particular application like a movie to Nvidia graphic processor, instead of selecting global settings, you need to select program settings and add the particular program and select high performance NVIDIA processor
5)Same steps can be followed to assign the Integrated Graphics to a program that requires less performance and more battery back up.

Hope the above information would help you. For further assistance please do reply.

Thanks and Regards
Dell_Deepa_R
Dell Social Media Responder
Dell Laptop Forum

 

Thanks Deepa. I think it's a good move on Dell's part to have advisers, like you patrolling forums like these.

I only ordered my 15R last Friday so I don't have it yet but it's my understanding that the Intel graphics will do fine for movies without the need for the nVidia GPU.

2.5 hours for light US is OK, but I will probably have to get a 9 cell battery eventually. I was hoping it might be as good as 3-5 hours, although some adjustment of screen brightness and CPU limits for battery-mode in the power settings might help.

I don't know if you saw my other thread on here about the LED backlight; there seem to be two descriptions; LED and WLED. Can you confirm that for Inspiron 15R N5110 units with the 1366x768 screen there is only one type of LED backlight?

Thanks,

Ian

 

Hi Ifb-online,

I would like to appreciate you for all your research that you have done. As you want to know about the kind of LCD offered with N5110 / 15R system, following is the description :-

15.6 inch WLED Bent-Type, HD resolution 1366x768, TrueLife

Following is the information that might help you understanding the concept of LED and WLED:-
WLED has the advantage of making the light brighter, higher in contrast, the overall unit weigh less and, and consume less power. You can say its one of the same thing WLED being the cheaper technology. It use a white LED as a backlight.
So the answer to your question is yes it uses one type of LED backlight.

Hope this information helps you.

Thanks and Regards
Dell_Deepa_R
Dell Social Media Responder
Dell Laptop Forum

 

For clarification, do all 15R N5110 models with the 1366x768 screen have the same backlight?

Ian

 

Hi Ifb-online,

I would like to give you the information that all 15R N5110 models with the 1366x768 screen have the same backlight.

For further help please do reply.

Thanks and Regards
Dell_Deepa_R
Dell Social Media Responder
https://twitter.com/Dellcares
Dell | Facebook

 

Thank you.

Ian

 

Hi Ian,

I am glad that I am able to answer your question. Thank you for your appreciation.

Thanks and Regards
Dell_Deepa_R
Dell Social Media Responder
https://twitter.com/Dellcares
Dell | Facebook