Dell Wants to Love You Long Time!
While going through a big stack of catalogs that came in my mail today I happened upon a catalog from Dell. unlike most people I receive two different catalogs from Dell, I receive the consumer and business catalogs. It was the business catalog that arrived and right on the front cover was a special deal on a laptop with 19 hours of battery life
19 Hours of Battery Life?
Battery life results based on Dell lab testing using MobileMark 2007 Benchmark. 19 hour battery life resulted from testing a Dell Latitude E6400 configured with solid state drive, Mobile Intel® GMA 4500MHD graphics, 9-cell primary battery, and 12-cell slice battery. Battery life varies by configuration, operating conditions, and other factors. Maximum battery capacity decreases with time and use.
Naturally all that extra power comes at a price and I'm not just talking about money. The 9-cell battery sticks out the back of the machine and the 12-cell slice battery goes on the bottom. Without the extra power the base machine weighs about 4.3 lbs.
Who would want such a thing? Business travelers.
Business travelers have long purchased laptops that offered secondary battery bays. Bays that are hot swappable and allow for either a battery or an ROM drive to be placed within.
I talked with a customer service rep from Dell and he told me that the 12-cell slice battery drains first and is hot-swappable. The 9-cell (or 6-cell) is not hot swappable.
As for weight. The machine weighs 4.3 lbs with the 6-cell, 5.3 lbs with the 9-cell and 6.6 lbs with the 9-cell and 12-cell slice installed.
[...] Original post by Ramblings from the Marginalized [...]
19 Hours of Battery Life? I had never heard of such long lengths of battery life, its about time that they make something with a long battery length! I wonder though… how the performance of the laptop is though while running on the batteries. I know on the laptop I own, while I run on the batteries, the thing feels slow as can be!
Till then,
Jean
Most laptops that run Vista have extra options in the power saving area. Turning off the built-in Wi-Fi can add about 25% to the length of time you can run on battery.
You can also carry an extra 12-cell slice in your bag and change it out when the one you are using runs out.
It’s hard to imagine the need for 19 hours of battery life, but I suppose that if you were in a region without electricity (e.g. third world country) it would be very useful.
I think the claim of 19 hours battery life is a sneaky marketing ploy. If you are using your DVD or using your harddrive lots it is significantly less then 19 hours of battery life.
James Bailey
I agree with Minnesota Attorny, I don’t see much of a reason to need 19 hours of battery life so this shouldn’t matter to most people. It’s amazing though to see them offer that much of time though, you can go to places without having to worry about if you brought your charger or not.
Like others have said – I can’t imagine that 19 hours is needed very often. There may be a few people that do a lot of travelling that might find the odd occasion where it was useful, e.g. if they wanted to use their laptop on a flight from the UK to Australia! But even then they’d need to get some sleep too!
I wonder how long it takes to charge?!
19 hours of battery life?? That is some really sweet stuff. People sometimes underestimate the importance of battery life when they are shopping for cell phones and computers nowadays. I guess you pay the price for battery life in terms of sheer size of the labtop.
till then,
Jean
I happen to be a teacher and there is a state law in New Jersey that you are not allowed to have wires sticking out across the floor of a classroom. (so your kids don’t trip and fall and end up in a hospital with a broken leg). This law is pretty much the same in all 50 states of the United State, which I guess minnesota attorney seems to think is a third world country. Ask any worker in an emergency room how many people they treat for broken legs or arms because someone tripped over a cord that someone left sticking out. There are many useful situations to have long battery life, school is just one example.
Great blog title, and I love the bit how battery life changes due to configuration and that the life of the batter will deteriorate over time and usage. So how long will it be till one has to purchase a really expensive battery to replace the obnoxiously heavy one?