How long does your laptop battery last?

[ríomhaire]

My laptop is fully charged and I'm unplugging it. Here's what Vista says it can do:
On high performance: 2 hr 38 min
On power saver: 3 hr 34 min

Which is odd, as high performance usually only gives me about an hour.

 

[Dynasty]

On max output I get an hour at absolute best, which has been slowly decreasing over the 2 years Ive had it.

Constantly having the power plugged in just drains the battery constantly, well, makes the life decrease anyway as its constantly on charge.

However if I lower my CPU to minimum and turn off my wireless, firewall etc, reduce the brightness right down, I get a good..2 hours, hah. Thats if im browsing the web or usually writing essays away from my home PC, so like on the train or something.

Then again its an Acer gaming laptop, so I kinda expected the battery life to always be crap due to the increase in component size and power requirements.

 

[Lucid]

Half an hour on high performance and power saver.
It's always plugged in now.

 

[Krynn72]

Man, **** laptops. I thought they lasted way longer than that.

 

[Polaris]

2 hours and half on HP Mini-Note 2133 with Vista.

 

[Dekstar]

I have an Acer Aspire 5050 (as in 50 percent of the time it doesn't work), and it has a maximum battery life of 2 hours. If it's on power saver with wireless on, browsing a few webpages on lowest brightness or chatting on MSN, I get 2 hours. If I turn everything including wireless off, kill all unwanted processes, it's about 1 hour and thirty minutes.

Also Dynasty, when your laptop's plugged in you should try removing the battery every so often. Your laptop will still run fine, but your battery won't be overcharging so much. Or just keep unplugging it once it reaches full charge and you're not doing much.

 

[Dog--]

I've got an Acer Aspire 5735Z and it lasts about 2 hours unplugged, but I leave it plugged in while I use it all the time, I don't really take it out of my house often.

 

[sixteenth]

I have a Macbook Pro that lasts 2,178 hours.


..I wish.

 

[Shakermaker]

My MSI Megabook lasts about 4 hours.

 

[PvtRyan]

My Dell M1330 goes up to 6 hours with a 9-cell.

 

[Omnomnick]

My...wait - I don't have a laptop!!

 

[Xendance]

My laptop doesn't even have a battery, it's constantly connected to power.

 

[Dumb Dude]

My laptop battery sucks. I've only had this laptop for a little over a year and its plugged in 95% of the time. The few times I take it to class it barely has enough for a one hour.

Lowest brightness setting and max CPU capped to 20% - 55 minutes
And if wireless is on, its about 45 minutes.

 

[Gemma]

My laptops like a pc if I unplug it, it will shut down. ):
Its probably because it is constantly plugged in and in use.

 

[Krynn72]

Silly Gemma, that IS a pc.

 

[Gemma]

Nu uhhhhhhhh... its a laptop it sits on my lap, and burns like hell :| I should Probably stop doing that.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

Too late, you are infertile.

My laptop is a Sony Vaio SZ3 with Windows 7 on it currently, pretty great lappy made of carbon fibre. With the graphics card switched off 3/4 hours, on...1 and a half...2 if I'm lucky? Graphics use juiceeeee

 

[CyberPitz]

On usual ho hum do my thing work, it says it has 3:57 left.

If I turn everything down and do power saving, it says closer to 4.5 - 5 hrs.

 

[Laivasse]

My Sager NP5796 gives me probably 1-2 hours depending on what I'm asking of it. I pretty much always have it plugged in though.

Undervolting the CPU makes a big difference I think.

 

[PvtRyan]

Too late, you are infertile.

Hoorah!

 

[Baserape>]

A little over 2 hours with a mouse, ext hd and wifi on. Fingers crossed power won't be an issue when wireless power kicks in, in around 5 or 10 years.

\o/

 

[The Monkey]

I don't own a laptop, don't need it. The only time it's useful is if we're doing a group work at uni, and then someone else always has one.

 

[Sanada]

My laptop is quite old now (5+ years) but the battery still works OK considering. It'll last about 1-2 doing light stuff but doing anything intensive drains it completely in about 30 minutes. Playing Peggle was enough to do this.

 

[CyberPitz]

I don't own a laptop, don't need it. The only time it's useful is if we're doing a group work at uni, and then someone else always has one.

Or your work has you doing work at home *On call?* and you require the work PC...

 

[lanceleader]

My fujitsu u820 got about 5 hours of battery and my Asus u6s about 2 hours with the extended battery

 

[The Monkey]

Or your work has you doing work at home *On call?* and you require the work PC...

Pitzy, meet the UBS stick.

Pitzy, this is the USB stick. USB stick, this is Pitzy. I'm sure you'll get along wonderfully.

 

[Vigilante]

My MacBook lasts about four hours if I'm not doing anything intense.

Youtube kills battery life. For some reason adobe flash player is really cpu intensive...

 

[Destructo-Bot]

Asus N10, runs for 10 hours with the 9-cell battery, 4-6 with the standard 6-cell. And it runs Half-Life2, TF2, L4D, and CS:S

http://www.n10user.com/forum25-n10-games.html
http://www.n10user.com/topic478-asus-n10-9cell-battery-updated-with-pics.html

 

[Kula Meenur]

My battery lasts from noon until night :naughty:

 

[Naph]

Riveting thread people.

 

[Letters]

The only good laptop is an el cheapo laptop. If you wouldn't put a firecracker under the lid for 10 bucks, it was a waste of your money, I guarantee you! GUARANTEE!

 

[Evo]

1 hour 42 mins on High Performance with FireFox and Steam running

Normally get about 2 and a half hours on power saver just using word

Tell me this then laptop experts, is it better to run the laptop without the battery being plugged in all the time?

 

[Gemma]

hoorah!

now I don't have to worry anymore

 

[PvtRyan]

1 hour 42 mins on High Performance with FireFox and Steam running

Normally get about 2 and a half hours on power saver just using word

Tell me this then laptop experts, is it better to run the laptop without the battery being plugged in all the time?

With lithium-ion batteries, the best thing is to charge often. A bad thing to do is each time you use it, to let it drain to 0% and then charge it to full again. The capacity of your battery will decrease rapidly if you have too many "full-charge" cycles.

 

[Acepilotf14]

3 hours or so on high perf, even longer on power saver.
My old laptop lasts <1 second.

 

[Moto]

I have a MacBook Pro that says it will last 2:15 with a full charge, but really, it only lasts like 45 minutes or 1 hour at best.