S76 site to post info on battery life

[val67]

Most of the web sites display the (approximate) battery life for notebooks; can S76 do the same, as I have seen countless posts regarding battery on laptops.

[echo314]

I imagine they may not be doing so because it can vary so much based on the workload (web/game/video editing), screen brightness, audio, etc. And depending on the hardware installed (some cards or procs may have significant differences in power consumption, even though they are both options for the same laptop model)

[thomasaaron]

It is a good suggestion. We used to do that, and I'm not exactly sure why they stopped. I'll pass your comment onwards and upwards.

[miniyak]

I think giving a range of best/worst case with standard ubuntu would be an honest way of going about listing battery life.

This way customers can reason thier personal type of usage into the equation.

The Panp5 being my first personal (and functional) laptop I wasn't really sure what type of user I would be, though at the time I thought that HDMI, eSata and WSXGA+ outweighed battery life. Turns out i have yet to use eSata and HDMI is disappointing. I do enjoy the higher resolution but the convenience of being off the cable turns out to be more important to me, knowing what i know now that is. The gazelle or lemur would be better suited to my type of use. All in all though im happy i got the Panp5


Truth be told I'm not all that put off by the generally lower battery life of s76/linux machines. However if I had been unaware that the battery life was going to be a compromise on my current laptop, I would be what is typically called "a disgruntled customer". This would have been because my expectation for that size laptop was 4 hours of web browsing. 4 hour life being something that i had saw on my grandmothers 15' dell inspiron 1150 with a power sucking 2.8ghz P4. Not everyone understands that Moore's Law neglects battery life. (and the logic of defining laws...)

[registering]

I agree that adding approximate battery life would be a very useful tool.

[Mechaphoenix25]

Miniyak, can you tell me what your max/min battery life times are? I'm thinking of purchasing that exact notebook (panp5) in the next couple weeks, and am weighing it against a Dell Studio 15 with quite literally identical specs and price, except for graphics card brand and battery capacity (the dell has a 9 cell option). Battery life is very important to me, as a college student on a campus where most buildings were built before electricity, and power outlets are scarce at best.

Also, does anyone know if there's a 9-cell battery available for purchase that'd fit the panp5? I'd be quite happy to shell out if necessary for longer life.

[thomasaaron]

I'm thinking of purchasing that exact notebook (panp5) in the next couple weeks

That *exact* notebook is no longer produced. We've moved to the PanP6. However, the two are very similar.

On our shop PanP6, we get 1.5 to 1.75 hrs on a charge.

[Mechaphoenix25]

Whoops, sorry about the model confusion, and thanks a ton for the quick reply. Unfortunately, I need a battery life of at least 3-6 hours. I'd attempt to rig something together myself, if it didn't run the risk of, y'know, exploding. :p

Out of curiosity, are there any 3rd party suppliers of batteries that fit System76's laptops? Or are they only produced in-house?

[thomasaaron]

I'm not aware of any 3rd party batteries for our current models.

[miniyak]

Panp5 general look at battery life

Recent plane ride: tuned off wireless, turned the governor to powersave, turned desktop effects off, screen brightness turned down, i got almost 2 hours. Watching videos and playing sodoku

Normal usage: An hour and 45 minutes

Heavy usage: Using game emulator or virtual machine ect. , less then an hour

Good example of how variation makes it hard to advertise battery life