Battery life with Thinkpad T430

[pschyska]

Hey Forums,

I was wondering if anyone has experiences with the current T430 Thinkpads and Ubuntu 12.10 or 12.4.
Background: I just got a X1 Carbon and was so disappointed by battery life - couldn't get idle power drain down below 12w when idling with reduced screen brightness, no radio and ubuntu 2d and after applying the common tweaks laptop-mode-tools, powertop GOOD things, and i915 kernel params stuff.
This machine wouldn't last longer than 2-2,5 hours for my usage (web development).
Long story short: I haven't given up Thinkpads alltogether and was looking at the larger devices. I like their keyboards, trackpoints and durability.
Does anyone own a T430 and get good batery life with it? Please write your processor model, applied tweaks and powertop usage when idling.

Thank you very much,
Paul

P.S.: Does anyone know if there is noticable differences in power consumption between the Ivy-Bridge i5s and i7s? I.e. i5-3210M, i5-3320M, i5-3360M, i7-3520M. Would I get significantly different battery life off them in day-to-day usage? I guess the faster processors draw more power at load, but they are also finished faster. So I supposed it comes down to idle power usage

[offgridguy]

I know this doesn't answer your question but i have found with my thinkpad L512
i get less Batt. life with12.04 than with windows 7.
2 to 2 1/2 hours would be maximum for me.
I have read other threads that suggest the same thing with other makes of
laptops as well. I like ubuntu and continue to use it, but it is not easy on resources.

[pschyska]

Yes, that seems to be a common problem.

The T430 with 9-cell appears to be the notebook in my profile which has the highest battery life (94wh) though. If that's not enough you can even add another 94wh slice battery

I'm kinda spoiled by the macbook pro's ability to run you through a working day on a single charge

[offgridguy]

I'm kinda spoiled by the macbook pro's ability to run you through a working day on a single charge

Wow, i'm impressed, i had no idea that kind of battery life was available with a laptop.
Do you know if the same would hold true for the macbook air ?
edit; I noticed the P.S. of your original post, i am not sure if a more powerful processer
would use significantly more battery. My understanding is that the monitor is the single
largest user and depending on the amount of graphics you are using will draw proportionatly
more power.
Personally i don't like using a dim screen even though it saves power, i also don't
like to slow down the performance even though that saves power as well.

[pschyska]

I feel bad about getting someone attracted to apple devices in my first thread on this forums
I've never used a MBA but I heard from friends and colleagues that the battery life is actually very impressive for a device this slim.
I.e.: http://osxdaily.com/2012/06/26/batte...an-advertised/

I'm afraid that this doesn't hold true when using ubuntu though When I installed Ubuntu on my machine the battery life dropped in half at least.
I know the current Macs are very similar to PCs, but I can imagine there are some differences in the hardware still, and I guess the available drivers are not very good. When booting Windows on Macs, the battery life is allegedly not great either.
The good battery life might be an effect of Apple controlling both hardware and software. I guess that's why the most PCs shipped with Windows have a worse battery life in Linux.

OT: I'm looking at the Dell Latitude E6430. It's damn ugly, heavy but gets good reviews for battery life and keyboard, which are my main priorities.

[tgalati4]

I have an older thinkpad (T43p) and I compiled my own kernel with voltage tweaks enabled. I use PHCtool to undervolt and thinkpad fan control to lower the fan speeds as well as dynamic clocking the ATI video card. I still only get 2 hours on a 6-cell battery. Watt-savings when from 22-24 watts to 17-18 watts. At least now the battery life is on par with WinXP Pro. You can buy a battery that fits in the DVD bay. It roughly doubles battery life. So now you are at 4 hours.

[offgridguy]

I have been looking at macs for some time now, this battery life factor for me is a
huge selling point.
As my username suggests, we live entirely off-grid, powering our home entirely
on solar power. At this time of year power consumption is not a small issue.
I could always curtail my computer use.

The Dell sounds good too.

edit: actually one reason i am interested in the MBA is another member in the forum thought the macbook pro was overkill, simply
more computer than needed, and he is a far more advanced user than i.

[offgridguy]

tgalati4, this is new info to me, thanks.

[pschyska]

tgalati4 thanks for your answer. For the current models Ultrabay batteries are only available for T430s, and even with this the power is lower than then T430 with 9cell (70 Wh vs 90 Wh or so).
The nine-cell will make then T430 bulkier than it already is though. Also, all of the T4x0 models as well as the X1C suffer from pretty bad display quality problems. I could notice a flicker in gray areas and a screen door effect on my X1C, and the T4x0 screens are said to be worse. I could live with mediocore screen, but not for /that/ pricetag
Just ordered the Dell, but am prepared to send it back if it proves to be a failure too. So if you have other suggestions
I'll report back once it arrives!

[pschyska]

As my username suggests, we live entirely off-grid, powering our home entirely on solar power.
edit: actually one reason i am interested in the MBA is another member in the forum thought the macbook pro was overkill, simply
more computer than needed, and he is a far more advanced user than i.

Heh, that's quite an interesting perspective on power consumption
I don't understand what he meant by more computer needed, it's a good machine, but I don't dig the keyboard, the looks and also not the OS. As I said it doesn't work quite well with Ubuntu. I had trackpad issues and battery life, as I said.

I don't know your usage pattern, so it might be OSX is perfectly good for you. Here in germany you can return every item ordered online within 14 days, so why not give it a try and order one?