Welcome to a laptop battery specialist
of the dell laptop battery
Chips: Processors have become so efficient, any road warrior will want a laptop made no earlier than June 2013, when Intel’s 4th Generation Core came out. And if you can, get one with this year’s 5th Generation Core. Intel and its laptop-building partners don’t make it easy to spot the difference—for this year’s models, the name of the processor should include “5th Generation” or read “5000-something.”
There’s another kind of processor, called Core M, that consumes less energy but also has less processing power for demanding work. Makers tend to use it in ultra-portable laptops that weigh less, with smaller batteries with such as dell Studio 1537 battery, dell Studio 1557 battery, dell KM958 battery, dell WU960 battery, dell TC030 battery, dell H9566 battery, dell Inspiron 1200 battery, dell UD260 battery, dell Vostro 1000 battery, dell Inspiron 1501 battery, dell RN897 battery, dell GP973 batterythat can’t last as long. Toshiba TOSYY -4.54 % ▼’s upcoming Core M laptop, the Portégé Z20t, is expected to get 17.4 hours of battery life. (The company couldn’t get me one to test in time for this review.)
Screens: The bigger, brighter and sharper your screen, the harder your battery will have to work. If you want any laptop to last longer, crank down the brightness on the screen. I used a light meter in all my lab tests to put them on equal footing, which meant setting most of them to roughly 70%.
Resolution, too, plays a role in power performance. It’s no surprise that the Lenovo had the lowest resolution of the group, though it was passable. There has yet to be a high-resolution MacBook Air, either. The Acer I tested has a high-res touch screen—and poorer battery life.
In my tests, a Dell XPS 13 with a relatively standard 1920x1080-pixel screen lasted about four hours longer than one with a Quad HD+ 3200x1800-pixel display. (I also find these higher-resolution screens maddening to use with Windows 8, which can make some apps look impossibly tiny.)
Watt Hours: Every system may draw on a battery differently, but not all batteries are created equal, either. These days, battery capacity is measured in watt hours (Wh). Dell’s XPS 13 includes a 52 Wh battery, while Lenovo packs two in the X250—a 23.2 Wh internal and a 72 Wh add-on.
Batteries still have a problem with losing capacity with repeated use. I noticed a degradation even in the three weeks I tested these laptops. Laptops that let you swap in new batteries, like the Lenovo ThinkPad, make it easier to deal with the inevitable decline than those that bury the batteries deep inside, like the MacBook Air and Dell XPS 13.
Design: Different theories about where to stash those batteries also impact the shape and weight of laptops. No doubt about it, the 72 Wh add-on battery gives Lenovo’s ThinkPad X250 a hefty backside—and brings the total weight to 3.6 pounds. It’s still lighter than most laptops from just a few years ago, but I could feel it tugging in my bag.
Dell gets to two-day battery territory by selling that optional power companion, a 43 Wh carry-along battery backup. Surprisingly, it was a huge success in my real-world test. I liked having it in my backpack as a security blanket for my laptop’s battery life, and as a way to charge my phone and tablet via USB. If one more thing can save me from carrying three extra chargers, I’m game.