How much time do you really get on battery?

I was somewhat amazed at the amount of battery life the meter on my new X201 was claiming, so I decided to test it. I had a lot of non-intensive work to do, so the timing was good. Over 4 days I used the laptop and kept notes on the usage (hopefully I'll get a chance to scan and upload the notes tomorrow so you can see what I did).

End result with the 9 cell:
11 hours 56 minutes of use
3 hours 8 minutes of standby
over the course of 4 days.

Anybody ever do a similar experiment? Results?

 

I get about seven hours of usage on the nine-cell. That's going from 100% down to when it goes into hibernation. The screen is at 7/15 with WiFi on, just doing regular stuff. That's about three times what I need. I believe the AFFS screens are a bit more power hungry as well. I'd do better on the regular screen.

I was actually thinking of getting the four-cell and saving the nine-cell for when I need it. They had the four-cell in the outlet a few weeks back for $40 I think, but they must've went fast. You snooze, you lose I guess.

 

Did you mean "3h8m of use and 11h56m of standby"?

 

i get 6 hours on max performance (9 cell)

 

I get around 4 hrs 30 mins on my R400 (6 cell). I always have wifi on, screen brightness at 7/10 and I would be doing surfing/ email, a couple of Word and pdf docs would be open. My machine is very new, so that may be the reason I get these numbers (or maybe not).

 

i can only get 3 hrs 30 min on my R400 or T400 on integrated GPU with the wifi on using the battery saver mode.

 

Hmmm..interesting. In my previous R400 (which was recently replaced), I used to get around the same as you. This new replacement machine seems different in many ways. I am getting longer times with the battery, the keyboard is radically different (better) and thankfully, there is no flex any where - especially on the palmrest. So, I can't really say what accounts for the difference.

Edit: I forgot to add, both the new and the old R400 had integrated GPUs.

 

I get around 3 and a half hours of use on my T410 with the 6-cell and wifi on browsing various web pages and the brightness at a surprisingly useful 4/15.

 

In this context, a quick question: How old is the battery that you folks are talking about? Seems odd that the same class of machines (R400/ T400/ T410(?)) could have varying battery times. I will check on the time of the battery on my machine again. What I find surprising is that the difference is about 1 hr with similar functions being executed. Can this be attributed to a new battery which over time degrades?

 

My X200 nine-cell is brand new still holding 83w charge out of 84 design capacity of 84w. As a contrast my R60 went about two and half hours on the brand new six-cell I had for it.

 

my batteries that i quoted the running time are brand new, the old one with around 25 charge cycles can give 3 hours under same condition, and the really old one from my 14.1 widescreen T61 and R61 (around 200 to 250 charge cycles, 3 of them) gives around 2 hours and 30 minutes if i am lucky.

The T400 has P8600 and the R400 has the P8400 CPU.

 

Very strange! My R400 has the P8600. I am checking on the time on the battery now.

Edit: Well, I tested it though not with a stopwatch etc. I got about 4 hrs and 15 mins (till the 10% level) making an allowance for +/- 10 minutes. During this time, I had on 2 tabs (one on gmail and one on which I was surfing) of IE8, one long Word 2007 document, the screen brighness was at the 2/3 level down and wifi was on. So, I think at this point the battery is giving me around 4 hrs and not quite 4 hrs 30 mins as I mentioned previously. But do keep in mind that this was a very rough estimation - as I said, no stopwatch etc.

 

LOL, no. Admittedly it was mostly wi-fi off word processor use, that's why I kept the chart that I'm going to scan in at some point.

 

My discrete graphics 9 cell T410 has about 4.5 to 5 hours on 1% brightness, WiFi on, and normal web surfing.

 

Entirely too much for me to be bothered to measure. I'm never gonna be able to drain my x200s' nine cell in one sitting of regular internet browsing and work, and keeping track of how long it lasts across several days is too much work. For instance, at 52% with wifi on and 7/15 screen brightness, single page web browsing (no flash), Window's is throwing me an estimate of 9.5 hours left, Power Manager saying 9.25 hours.

I know this though, using it at school 4/7 days of the week on battery, I only charge it at the end of the week (when it gets below 40%).

 

With the ultrabay battery and profile set to max battery life, my T410s gets just over 5 hours of wifi internet surfing with screen brightness set at half. I got right about 3 hours of playing civilization 4 on the intel graphics on an airplane, which I thought was pretty good for a 3d game.

 

I can't believe that when you use your laptop, it lasts longer when you stand by it!

 

I wish my battery life was that long. Still, on a regular school night during the year, I don't find myself working more than 4 hours anyways (8PM - 12 AM) alway from an outlet so I guess it won't be a problem.

 

You mistunderstood. 11 hrs 56min of use AND 3 hrs 8min of standby on a single charge. Not "or."

 

I get about five and a half hours out of my T400's 9-cell, although the battery has degraded to about 72 W/h out of the design capacity of 84 W/h. This is on Win7 Pro x64 and wifi enabled, doing mostly Net browsing and lighter stuff. Playing music definitely puts a load on the battery, so I don't normally do it. I've got 85 cycles on it. When it goes down to about three hours of performance, I'll probably end up replacing it.

 

how do you measure your usage and standby time to the minute over the course of 4 days on a single charge? Do you like use a stop watch every time you resume using your laptop and use another stop watch every time you put your laptop on standby?

 

A watch with a hacking movement that I reset to 00:00 (12:00:00 really) at the first boot up of the day and a chart where i keep track of the times.

 

Incredible. Wanna get one myself