Mini-Note XP Battery Life Test
On the previous battery life test the Mini-Note running Vista Business got to two hours and twenty minutes before the 10% battery life warning came up. At that point it said the battery still had 19 minutes left, so there was about two hours and forty minutes of battery time there.
This time on the XP test the Mini-Note got 2 hours and 42 minutes before the 10% warning came up. The warning said the battery had about 19 minutes of charge on it. The gives us around 3 hours of battery life.
Both tests were done on the 1.6Ghz Mini-Note with the six-cell battery by playing a Superbad DVD rip at full screen of the HD, with the volume at a reasonable level, wireless on, power mode set to Max Performance/Minimal Power management (Vista/XP), and the screen brightness set two notches down from full brightness.
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:40 am
Zees eez da 6 cell?
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:21 am
Was that with a 3 or 6 cell pack?
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:24 am
Was this with the 6-cell or the 3-cell battery?
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:09 am
Sorry, 6 Cell battery. I’ll update the post as well
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:52 am
Was the webcam on/off? Does it matter to battery life?
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:37 am
@foo
The webcam wasn’t disabled in Device Manager or the BIOS. I don’t think it would make a difference if it had been though.
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Excellent review. And it’s also a good indicator of the life of these things. 3 hours while watching a movie is quite decent.
May 29th, 2008 at 5:45 am
Heya,
Just one other question was this running the 1GB ram or 2GB ram, I doubt it would make a *whole* lot of difference but the possibility still exists lol.
Stuart
May 31st, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Hi! Thanks for the info! Was wondering whether you did anything to the battery before you tested? Such as a full charge & discharge?
June 1st, 2008 at 9:54 am
@midgymaru
It’s be down to 5 or 6%, but not a full discharge. It’s not good for Lithium-Ion batteries to be completely discharged. They don’t get a ‘memory’ (crystallization) like Nickel-Cadmium batteries do
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:02 pm
@Josh
You’ll actually find that lithium batteries actually contain a small circuit in them to prevent over-discharge, regardless how long you ‘try’ and run them for.
After a certain point they’ll just go open circuit at load, no matter what you do, until you recharge them.
This little circuit(about half the size of a matchbox, 2mm thick) prevents any damage to the lithium battery regardless of external conditions.