Average battery life - Notebooks
 

Hey, I'm just wondering as to what everyones avg battery life is for their notebooks, and what their specs are. Personally, my battery life sucks...I unplug it and walk upstairs, and its down about 3-4%...its almost pointless as a notebook...so is there any way to improve battery life? Any tips/suggestions would be nice.

Re: Average battery life - Notebooks
 

Buy a new Centrino notebook!

Seriously! The power management features double the best battery lifespan available in any other form of notebook.

Re: Average battery life - Notebooks
 

Well, I've already bought one...as I said. So I can't quite buy a centrino, I'm just wondering what everyone else's battery life is like, so I can compare to mine.

Re: Average battery life - Notebooks
 

I hear ya...my battery life on my laptop is now down to the order of 15-20 minutes now.

what is the avg life on batteries and how to best preserve/maintain/take care of Li-ion batteries?

these days, I often leave my laptop plugged in much like a desktop for extended periods of time (days or even weeks) and wondering if it's worth the trouble to remove the battery.

The only plus I can think of leaving it in is you've got pseudo-built in UPS :)

Any comments appreciated!

Re: Average battery life - Notebooks
 

the life on my old IBM thinkpad (P2) equates to roughly 3 to 4 hours on a fully charged battery but it depends on the area im in. some areas i'll get 3.45 hours and others i'll be lucky if i get an hour and a half.

[quote]I hear ya...my battery life on my laptop is now down to the order of 15-20 minutes now.

what is the avg life on batteries and how to best preserve/maintain/take care of Li-ion batteries?

these days, I often leave my laptop plugged in much like a desktop for extended periods of time (days or even weeks) and wondering if it's worth the trouble to remove the battery.

The only plus I can think of leaving it in is you've got pseudo-built in UPS :)[quote].

Don't leave ur laptop plugged in persistantly, it wont do the battery any favours because while your leaving it on the mains its constantly putting charge into the battery and therefore shortening the battery life. these batteries do have a memory in them. the more you charge them the less output you'll acquire from them. try taking off the charger and only charging when you need to i.e when the laptop only has a few minutes left.;)

Re: Average battery life - Notebooks
 

hmm..i would figure that everytime you want to dock your laptop while you're at your desk, you want to charge the battery, use your laptop for some period of time before you undock. I can only imagine the standard design spec is to leave the battery so as to avoid the hassle of (1) unplugging your laptop all the time or (2) removing the battery when its full.

in other words, a circuit in the laptop would stop charging the battery when it was full...something wrong with my logic?

at this point, the battery is so toast, i just leave it plugged in all the time! a bit of a sacrifice for convenience :rolleyes:

Re: Average battery life - Notebooks
 

I'm with your logic, whirlwind ;)

Re: Average battery life - Notebooks
 

ok, let me point out that I dont have a docking station for my laptop. apparently they dont make them for my particular model anymore.

It sounds like your battery has been over charged or has just simply got old. Im remaining neutral here so I'm not going with any logic. thats not saying whether you are right or wrong tho.;)

Re: Average battery life - Notebooks
 

Thanks for the input guys!

Yes - my battery is definitely old and admittedly, I bought a refurbished battery 2 yrs ago - my mistake - you get what you paid for! (ie. $50 for a $150-200 battery!)

When I'm ready to upgrade my laptop and start over - I'll definitely bring this issue again!

Re: Average battery life - Notebooks
 

My internal laptop battery life also sucks. My solution was to pick up a batterygeek ultra high capacity external laptop battery which is now giving me over 6+ hours of run time per charge. Also, they have a full 1 year extended replacement warranty. They also offer some nifty free gifts... Thier website is at www.batterygeek.net

Best of luck,

Adam