Battery life on Dell 700m's

[Pliablemoose]

Just scored a 700m for <$900 after taxes.

Since my biggest bitch about the Averatec 3220 I have is battery life I got the 8 cell battery with the 700m.

Anyone have one &amp; can you tell me what kind of battery life to expect?

 

[zodder]

I just ordered an Inspiron 8600 and got the $500 instant and $200 MIR. Can't beat those deals. 🙂

 

[DT4K]

I got in, but it's dead now.

 

[drewdogg808]

5 hours or a little more.

 

[htyei]

So... does anyone know how much the batttery life impact is from replacing the 4200 rpm drive with a 72000 rpm drive is?

 

[vegetation]

Originally posted by: htyei
So... does anyone know how much the batttery life impact is from replacing the 4200 rpm drive with a 72000 rpm drive is?

That's too general of a question as power consumption varies between models. Some 7200 drives actually consume less power than other 4200s on the high end of the power consumption scale. The only way to get a real answer is to look at the idle power specs for specific modles, however they generally wont waver more than a watt or so. IBM/Hitachi drives also have a special low power setting that allows the drive to consume even less idle power however at the expense of performance.

 

[zodder]

That's good to hear. I got the basic battery with the 7200 drive and was a little worried about battery life.

 

[Abhi]

A little over 4 hours...

 

[trikster2]

Abhi do you have the 700m?

Any idea why your batttery life is twice as good as what CNET found:

Battery life
Unlike its excellent mobile performance, the Dell Inspiron 700m's battery life leaves much to be desired, particularly for a system designed with mobility in mind. In our tests, the Inspiron 700m lasted about two and a half hours--46 percent less than the Gateway M275XL and 57 percent less than the HP Compaq nc6000. The Inspiron 700m's lackluster performance is due to its meager 14.8V, 2,200mAh (33WHr) battery, which got dusted by the Gateway M275XL's 14.8V, 3,600mAh (53WHr) battery and the HP Compaq nc6000's 14.4V, 4,400mAh (63WHr) battery. Though its battery life wasn't terrible, we wish that Dell had included a more powerful battery for such an inherently portable system.



Ok, yeah CNET reviews suck but I can't believe they would be that far off?????

 

[trikster2]

Ok, I read your comment right after the preceding standard battery comment so assumed you had the same, but now I see the original thread comment was regarding the larger, stick out the but 700m battery. So the 4hrs life must be for that monster?

 

[kent1146]

The CNET review probably used the 4-cell battery, and not the 8-cell. My experience with this laptop is 2-2.5 hours with 4-cell, 4-5 hours with 8-cell.

And I have upgraded a 4200rpm laptop drive to a Hitachi 7200rpm drive. There is an INCREDIBLE boost in performance and load times, and no detrimental effect on battery life to speak of. Here is a Tom's Hardware article about the very subject of 4200rpm vs 7200rpm drives:
http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/20031031/index.html