Solved Laptop Battery Question

[bigmck]

I am in the market for a laptop. One of my priorities is a long lasting battery. I understand that it is hard to give an exact amount of battery time due to how a laptop is being used. All they say in the ads is "6-Cell". Can anyone give me an idea of what kind of time we are talking about with a 6-Cell? Thanks,

 

[karlsnooks]

I know nothing about 6-cell.

Look at the specs for a laptop. see what the power consumption is 35w,45w,65w or whatever.

Generally, the newer laptops consume less power, generally power consumption will be higher for a faster cpu.

Mine new laptop is rated at 6 hours, but how many really I do not know. Some of the longer times are based upon a piggy-back battery pack.

My new laptop, Toshiba, has an amd A10 cpu and I'm pleased on that part-good speed, moderate power consumption.

 

[Anthony]

Also another thing to take into consideration, if the battery life is a concern, buy a laptop with an SSD for obvious reasons.

 

[TVeblen]

When you look at the specs for the laptop, pay attention to the battery spec that deals with Milli-Amp-Hours (mAh). A lot of models have 6 cell batteries in the 4800 to 5200 mAh range.

A second spec is Watt-Hours (Wh). You will see numbers in the 50 Wh range.

You just want to max these numbers the best you can, as higher numbers mean the battery can run longer on a given output (which will vary from user to user - in TIME - but the total output will be the same)

More cells in a battery give bigger numbers but also increase the size of the battery. It is very uncommon to see a new laptop with anything but a 6-cell battery, but I have seen some with 8. Almost all the large cell batteries are upgrades or after-market replacements.

Some manufacturer's are very good at listing the mAh and Wh in their specs, others are not. I tend to assume that no information means that the specs are not pretty.

Hope that helps.

 

[bigmck]

Also another thing to take into consideration, if the battery life is a concern, buy a laptop with an SSD for obvious reasons.

Let me ask you about that.............I have a SSD on my desktop. I really like it. I have never seen a laptop for sale with a SSD. Would I need to install it myself or do they sell them with it?

 

[TVeblen]

Right now there are some, but few. More coming out every day.

But they get a big premium for machines with them, it looks to me like you could add one cheaper then they get for them.

It would be best to look for a laptop with 2 HDD slots, then you are not "wasting" a new spinner. Although they make nice backup/disk image drives!

And that also just throws the saving energy thing out the window!

 

[bigmck]

Right now there are some, but few. More coming out every day.

But they get a big premium for machines with them, it looks to me like you could add one cheaper then they get for them.

It would be best to look for a laptop with 2 HDD slots, then you are not "wasting" a new spinner. Although they make nice backup/disk image drives!

And that also just throws the saving energy thing out the window!

Do the same 2.5 inch SSD go in the laptops as do the desktops?

 

[TVeblen]

Yep.

Actually, desktops use 3.5" spinning drives, but you can buy an adapter to install a 2.5" drive in a 3.5" drive bay. The regular SATA cables work for both size drives.

Laptops always use 2.5" drives.

 

[bigmck]

Yes, I put a 2.5 inch in an adaptor for my desktop. I appreciate your help. I think a laptop and a SSD would be the way to go. Thanks,

 

[DeaconFrost]

SSDs, as mentioned, and 2.5", so as long as the laptop in question had SATA connections, you can usually install one within a minute or two. You can buy laptops with them already added, but you'll pay quite a bit more.

As far as your original question saying a battery is 6 cell is basically meaningless. That only time that number matters is when you are comparing batteries of identical kinds. For example, if you were buying a specific Dell, the accessories and options may list a 6 cell battery and a 9 cell battery. Then 9 cell, in theory, would last 50% longer than the 6 cell. The number of cells has no corelation to the amount of itme, as that varies on hardware, usage, etc.

 

[bigmck]

SSDs, as mentioned, and 2.5", so as long as the laptop in question had SATA connections, you can usually install one within a minute or two. You can buy laptops with them already added, but you'll pay quite a bit more.

As far as your original question saying a battery is 6 cell is basically meaningless. That only time that number matters is when you are comparing batteries of identical kinds. For example, if you were buying a specific Dell, the accessories and options may list a 6 cell battery and a 9 cell battery. Then 9 cell, in theory, would last 50% longer than the 6 cell. The number of cells has no corelation to the amount of itme, as that varies on hardware, usage, etc.

That is interesting. I was not aware that laptops didn't have SATA connections standard.

 

[DeaconFrost]

That is interesting. I was not aware that laptops didn't have SATA connections standard.

Now they do. You seemed to be discussing a previously owned laptop when it switched to SSDs. If it was an older laptop using IDE drives, then a typical SSD wouldn't work. But, if this is going in a new laptop, purchased new, you'd have no worries.