Battery Life between mobile Core i3 and i5?

[deeyo]

Hey I was wondering if anyone knows how battery life generally fares between core i3 and i5 laptops? I did a bit of searching and most reviews don't compare between the two, but maybe if you know something about the power consumption of each, you can provide some insight.

Specifically, I'm looking to buy a new laptop soon and I really like the Thinkpad T410s except for the rather low battery life (why would they tempt me with ultraportable dimensions and non-portable battery life??) The few reviews out there report a 3-hr battery life for minimal work on an i5-520M. Some resellers are selling a model with an i3-330M. Would that downgrade result in significant real-world improvement in battery life? Significant being like an hour.

Thanks people!

 

[jiffylube1024]

Sorry to disappoint, but the battery life difference will be close to nil. You'd be lucky to get 15 minutes extra on the 330M, if anything...

They are both dual core 35W TDP processors (they consume a maximum of 35W in operation):

http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLBNA
http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLBPK

They are basically the same CPU on the exact same manufacturing process and architecture, at similar voltage.

The 330M runs at 2.26 GHz with no Turbo boost. The 520M runs at 2.4 GHz, and in single-processor intensive tasks Turbo takes it up to 2.93 GHz (but remember, with Turbo on that's 2.93 GHz for one core only).