[pughypro]

Hoping you can give me some advice from your experiences and purchases.

I was wondering which laptop would give the best battery life? I know this is dependant on what you are doing with it, but in my case it's predominantly internet use through wireless, so its important I have this on.

I have an Acer 5535 currently which I've had for a few months and generally I'm very impressed with it.

Maybe I'm asking too much, but I struggle to get two hours from it between charges. Is it just me or is that about the norm?

I have the power management on balanced as it doesn't seem to make any difference if I switch to power saving.

Can anyone tell me through their experiences what they are getting out of their laptops and which Laptop is supposed to give the best life without having to resort to an expensive and obtrusive battery upgrade!

Many thanks in advance and excuse me while I have to go and put this on charge!!!!!

[planetse]

Maybe a Notebook is not the right tool for you. Have you considered a Netbook?

Lots on the market now to choose from but not all will give you better battery life over a Notebook. I have a number of Notebooks and the Samsung NC10 Netbook. The NC10 gives me 7 ½ hrs mixed use of browsing the net, sticking on a film and using word etc, no Notebook can get even close to that.
If you can get 2hrs out of the one you have that is not bad going most will not do any or much better that.

Have a good look into Netbooks, I was a little standoffish to start with but now spend more time on this thing than any of my Notebooks.

[pughypro]

I have been looking into this recently and am giving it serious consideration.

I'm just trying to get over the lack of any optical drive and smaller screen and keyboard issues etc.

I did have one a little while ago, but it was only one that came through the Carphone Warehouse, and Elonex Webbook. I wasn't very impressed and that sort of tainted my experience with them, but there looks to be some good ones out there now.

Is it generally accepted that the Samsung NC10 and the Eee PC 901 or 1000 are the best ones at the moment particularly on battery life?

Many thanks, anyone else with thoughts please let me know

[bogart99]

As you say it depends what you are doing, but getting around 2 hours sounds ok to me. I can possibly squeeze a bit more out of mine with a 5300mAH battery, but this plummets if you start doing a lot of disk accessing, watching a DVD etc ie anything that causes the fan to run.
Have heard that having the WiFi enabled when not using it uses quite a bit of power, plus you can also drop the power if you dont need a long range to connect.

[gavan]

Originally Posted by pughypro

I have been looking into this recently and am giving it serious consideration.

I'm just trying to get over the lack of any optical drive and smaller screen and keyboard issues etc.

I did have one a little while ago, but it was only one that came through the Carphone Warehouse, and Elonex Webbook. I wasn't very impressed and that sort of tainted my experience with them, but there looks to be some good ones out there now.

Is it generally accepted that the Samsung NC10 and the Eee PC 901 or 1000 are the best ones at the moment particularly on battery life?

Many thanks, anyone else with thoughts please let me know

Lack of optical drive isn't a problem for most people - how often do you actually pop a DVD or CD into your computer? When I do need to access CDs or DVDs I use one of the virtual CD programmes (got Virtual CD free off a magazine) to make an image on another PC and put it on a memory key or copy to my HDD. For video I always watch divx or xvid files anyway which play superbly on netbooks.

Screen is a bit of a compromise but the increased portability more than makes up for it, IMO. If you are at home just plug it into a standard monitor for a full size normal screen.

Keyboard depends on netbook - the NC10 one is really good and close to a normal laptop. I also have an Aspire One and it is a bit 'shrunken' but still usable. As with a monitor, if you are at home just plug in a USB keyboard.


Netbooks are incredibly portable - they put laptops to shame. You really can carry them everywhere. With a battery life of close to 8 hours, the NC10 really nails it when you are out and about.

[RobM]

Both the NC-10 and the Asus 901 are on-par when it comes to battery life. The 901 keyboard is very small though. Fine if it's an occasional use device, but if you intend on using it daily, go for the NC-10

[pughypro]

I was thinking the Samsung NC10 was the way to go, given its battery life and larger keyboard, supposed to be 93% of a full one.

Having read some of the other threads on here, I now realise I can also get an external USB DVD writer like the Liteon that does not require a seperate mains supply, which sounds very neat. This would cover the occcaisonal time when I need to do something from a disc.

With this in mind, where it the best, and by that I mean cheapest, place to pick one of these up?

Thanks in advance

[planetse]

There is the new NC20 to consider, gives you a 12” screen (the extra 2” might make a difference) and maintains a very good battery life.

Bit close to a Notebook for my liking but still worth a closer look for yourself. The new ones are a lot different to your previous experience.

[Jack06]

Wow!

It is good to see so many people taking initiative and giving us a good info on
'Laptop with the best battery life'. Thank you everyone for your useful information.

Laptops originally had one purpose – to enable the user to work from a wider variety of locations with ease. Buy batteries with internal processors such as Li-Ion batteries. Non Li-Ion batteries must be fully discharged and then recharged every 3-4 weeks. If you don't use your laptop for a period of time, you must fully discharge then recharge the battery. So, you can find out how to extend your laptop's battery and make sure you don't get caught with a dead battery. It's painless, quick and a good routine to get into while using your laptop on the road.

[globaltor999]

Really don't know how true is it, but recently a very good friend of mine who has been using a Macbook Pro for around 1 year now told me, that the battery life he is getting is almost 9 hours.

And he normally does carry out his daily works on his macbook pro while on the move and never bothers to carry the battery charger with him.

Also, whenever he is not using his laptop, he never bothers turning it off either, it just goes on standby automatically.. if this is really true, doesn't this really show that Macbook has a far more better battery life than other notebooks? The only drawback he let me know about is, at times it really gets hot and becomes unbearable sometimes, as a result of which he has to ultimately shut down his mac for 20 - 30 mins, but that is very rarely, and happens to him in about once in a blue moon...

I am not an expert in this, but still would like to have your responses on this. Thanks!

[petecarter]

i get 7hours+ from my 11.6 inch toshiba satellite t110. well worth considering. there are a few cheap ones about too because i think they are discontinuing it soon.