Battery Life with 7200 vs 5400 SATA, 128 vs 64 video ram

Recently re-ordered a T60 with 15" flexview, 7200 rpm HD, and 128 video ram (ATI 1400). Prior T60 had 5400, 64 video ram, 14" screen. My question relates to effect on battery life by 1) using the 7200 rpm HD, 2) swithching from the 1300 to 1400 ATI video - i.e., from 64 to 128 videao ram. My understanding is that the 15 inch flexview is brighter and would therefore use more power - tis could be compensated for by lowering the brightness setting while using battery power. What is unclear is whether the 7200 HD's are very power hungry and would noticeably effect battery life. Likewise for the higher video ram. Any thoughts???

 

Did you get the 9-cell battery for your new T60? Also, is 9-cell battery bigger than 6-cell or is weight the only difference?

I notice that majority of T60 buyers have the 14" screen. I'm curious, how easy are 15" non-widescreen laptops to carry around? Are they as bulky as carrying 14" widescreen or worse usually?

 

Yes you are right about the HD and the graphics card. More powerful computers take more power. Are you asking suggestions on how to conserve power?

 

I have a 60GB 7200RPM HDD in my Inspiron 8600 and I still get ~2.5 - 3 hours of battery life, depending on my usage.

 

I ordererd it with the 6 cell battery (9 cell is too heavy). I ordered this t60 after returning a 14 inch one - the screen was a bit dim on battery, and theonly wayt to get a flexview screen was on the 15 inch model. The new site allows to ordr exactly which components you want, so I took advantage and ordered the 7200 drive. The current machines only offer 128 (1400 ATI) megs video ram. My main question is whether the faster hard drive poses a sifnifican increase in power. Ditto for the 1400 ATI vs. 1300. I ask this sinc some the Sony SZ allows you to switch on and off the 128 meg video - presumably for power conservation.

 

I'm pretty sure the biggest power difference is the screen. A 14" w/ x1300 and 5400rpm and a 15" w/ x1400 and 5400rpm have been reviewed here, and I have a 14" w/ x1400 and 7200rpm HD. My battery life experience is close to that of the other 14" (a little shorter of course), while it took a 9 cell to get the 15" to go 15 or 20 mins longer than the 3.5 hrs of the 6 cell 14". It looks like similar loads between the three, but I'm not positive, so this is very anecdotal.

The 9-cell is bigger, sticks out of the back of the t60.

 

I see...ok just to clarify, so you mean 9-cell battery will stick out on the 14" T60 but will not on the 15" T60 ?

 

If your 14" with 7200 was close to the review battery life, then it sounds like going to the 7200 hard drive is of little consequence. I wonder if the power management schemes control the hard drive spin rate??

 

The Sony SZ has a GMA950 riding shotgun with the GeForce, and this scheme (from the reviews I've seen of similar configurations) doesn't really help.

The 9-cell sticks out of both.

I haven't seen a benchmark for performance differences between 7200rpm and 5400rpm on battery life, but under normal circumstances there is a significant performance advantage for 7200rpm drives...sorry I can't give a straight answer regarding the power management impacting spin rate.