D830 - 9-Cell vs. 6-Cell Battery

I'm still on the line with which to buy. With the 15.4" screen and a 9-cell battery, will this notebook be too bulky to fit in normal cases? I have a targus backpack that is meant to hold 15" laptops, but have never had a battery sticking out before.

Also, is the battery life or weight difference significant?

I was originally going to get the D630, but I feel that for the ~1.5lb. weight tradeoff, it's nice to have the bigger screen.

 

U mean latitude, latitude is better than inspiron, build quality wise, since they are more expensive, given the same spec. battery life for 6-cell is about 3.5 hr, 5hr for 9-cell generally.

 

Yes, D830 is a latitude.

Are you saying that the incremental improvement in 9-cell over 6-cell is larger in the latitude than in the inspiron?

 

no, it is just general maths, inspiron can run about 3.5 hr for idle task like web browsing and microsoft office. so 9 cell is 1.5X the capacity of 6 cell, so 3.5x1.5 = 5.25. I've read b4 that dell with 9 cell can run for 5 hrs.

Inspiron keyboard is pretty lousy, i change it when its under warranty. The enter and backspace key becomes not responsive after half a yr. The technical guy that changed the keyboard for me told me that latitude is of better quality, latitude keyboard is about twice the price of inspiron. If you go for inspiron, since its cheaper than latitude, upgrade the warranty. You can add dedicated graphics with inspiron but not latitude, if i am not wrong

 

The new latitude D630's and D830's that were released today have dedicated graphics.

Does anybody know the benefit in power of 256 over 128 dedicated graphics? I am not a heavy gamer, but want full vista aero functionality and will watch much media content on the computer..

 

The power is mostly on the chip, the one with 256mb is 140M while the one with 128mb is 135M. quadro is a professional card, so it is slightly more expensive than the mainstream geforce. But it seem you cannot choose geforce with latitude.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/quadrofx-vs-firegl.html

 

The power is mostly on the chip, the one with 256mb is 140M while the one with 128mb is 135M. quadro is a professional card, so it is slightly more expensive than the mainstream geforce. But it seem you cannot choose geforce with latitude.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=120217

 

But is the battery sticking out on D830? At the back or at the bottom?

If it's sticking out just a little bit I'll go with the 6-cell... No pictures on dell's site... Thanks.

 

Well... as it looks 9-cell sticks out on D630 but obviously not on D830...

But I was very disappointed with the Customer Product Reviews on Dell's official site...

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...z&cs=555&sku=312-0386&~lt=popup&~ck=XYRelated

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=biz&cs=555&sku=312-0394


Are dell's batteries really that bad?

 

Hmm, judging by those reviews I may go 6-cell if the batteries really do drain after 6 months.

Are you sure about it not sticking out on the D830? I figured it would, since it does on all the other models

 

I would like to know about this too, thanks.

 

Batteries are consumables, they all wear out with time.

 

Those battery reviews aren't an indication of anything. There's bound to be some bad batteries among the thousands (millions?) of batteries Dell sells. Batteries are covered under warranty for a year, if it really drops 50% capacity in 6 months Dell should replace it.

 

The 9 Cell battery on the D830 does NOT stick out past the main frame of the laptop.

MG

 

cool, thanks!

 

any more insight on this?

 

Do you already have your D830? I am going to be ordering today & have been debating the 9 cell battery, but don't want it if it sticks out.

 

It supposedly does not stick out. Unfortunately, there isn't a single review available anywhere that I have found yet on this unit.

 

Thanks for your quick reply. Do you have a D830 yet? If so, do you have the 6-cell?

 

Are you basing this on the D820? Do you have a 9-cell in your D830? Someone in the Sales Dept @ Dell said the 9-cell sticks out the front on both the D630 & D830. I just need someone who already has the D830 with the 9-cell battery to post a response, so we'll know for sure. Thanks.