E320 with HD6630M, does it affect battery life?

Hello,

I'm living in South Korea and currently there are two options for Thinkpad Edge E320. With i3-2310 the price is around $600, whereas for $700 I could get the i5-2310 and HD6630M. I would not really use the discrete graphics (I have a gaming desktop already) but the extra $100 is definitely worth the price. My concern is that is the HD6630M version going to affect battery life (around 7 hours - from a German site review). I know AMD has recently developed a version of graphics switching to reserve battery life but is it as efficient as NVIDIA Optimus yet?

 

Graphics switching works just fine on my Acer. I prefer the AMD method to optimus.

 

Thanks Bronsky,
How about i3 vs i5, does it make any difference concerning battery life?

 

the difference of battery life between the i3 and i5 low end (i5-2410m) are not that much under normal use. Under full performance you may see a 10% difference in battery life.

 

I've had a last generation I3-370M & I5-540m in my current Acer 3820TG notebook. Even the most routine functions kept the I3 running at max power. The I5 handled functions like browsing without needing to increase power demand much above idle. The real difference is when using the CPU under load (like running Matlab). In practice, you will see a big difference in battery use only when you're pushing the I5 in it's upper power range.

Where are these available?

 

Here are the links, you may need google translate though:

i5 and HD6630, 320gb HDD
??? ThinkPad Edge E320 1298-RW6 (??) ???? :: ????? ?? ! ??? (????) - Danawa.com

i3 320gb HDD
??? ThinkPad Edge E320 1298-RW7 (??) ???? :: ????? ?? ! ??? (????) - Danawa.com

Converted to USD they are around $700 and $600.
By the way, I was quite surprised looking at the Thinkpad Edge prices. Aren't they much cheaper than the original thinkpad? I've read a large number of reviews on the recent thinkpad edges and they all say that the Edge build quality is nothing compared to the X or T series.

So how would a E320 fare against a Asus u31sd in terms of build quality? The U31sd has i3, 640gb HDD, a 8 cell battery that lasts 9h+, and 2-year warranty for around $700. Specs-wise it better suits my needs. Which one would you recommend if I want a laptop that lasts more than 3 years?

Thank you very much!

 

given that the U31 has a terrible build quality, I would say that it will fare better

I would say the x220 would fit your needs better, it has a longer battery life and a better build quality which is needed if you want to keep the laptop after the warranty expires

 

I surely love the X220 but it's about $1400 here for the i5 without IPS display that's why I highly doubt the E320 for being so *cheap* compared to other Thinkpad here.

Also there are 11 inch Thinkpad Edge E120 with Intel 957 and i3-2357M but there are not many reviews on them so does anyone know how long the battery lasts? I want a X120e but it's not offered here.

 

yes the quality of the notebook is quite mid range according to the reviews that I saw. There is the version that only comes with the intel HD 3000 instead of the 6630m, those as it appears are quite cheaper than the one with a dedicated gpu