Battery Issues.

Hello i am new to this forum,so please forgive me if this has been discussed in the past. I recently bought a Dell inspiron 15r Laptop with 2nd gen I5 possessor as well as other decent hardware. However one of the selling points was the "7 hour battery". here is my question, what is this based on. There is no way i come close to this even when my settings are turned all the way down for power consumption. The best I get is 3 plus hours witch QUICKLY turns to minutes. Very confusing battery meter. It could say "55 minute left" but also say 80 percent. Can someone please educate me on laptop battery's. I am about to take a long plane ride, and would like to maximize my battery usage.

 

7 hours is probably the theoretical maximum, of course all depending on your usage. It has a 48 WHr battery, so 7 hours would mean you need to be @ 6.8 watts of light use to get that, which is achievable with Sandy Bridge and an SSD. My X220 Tablet with a 63 WHr battery can get 9 hours light usage, I get about 6.5 watts on light usage. Unfortunately Dell laptops don't have Lenovo's Power Management software which can give you real time updates on your wattage. Average users should get 8 watts if you have a mechanical drive, which would mean 6 hours (dimming the screen, not running Flash, etc).

 

Thank You for your reply. I have to find ways of conserving power when running on battery only.