My new Thinkpad X61s Battery life. Open to questions.

[ctrler]

Hi.

I've just received my new Thinkpad X61s, model 766927G. You can check the specs here: http://www5.pc.ibm.com/europe/products. ... enDocument

With the 2600 mAh battery and all the settings optimized for battery life, I'm only getting 2h of battery life with a drainage of around 12W, but, sometimes, don't know really why, I get a drainage of only 9W and the battery lasts 2.5h or more. All the tests where made with all the settings on low, and only the wireless on.

I'm thinking on buying the 8 cell battery, but is it only going to double the 2h battery life? Because its was supposed to be more like 6h and not only 4h...

By the way, feel free to ask any questions about the laptop, I'll be glad to answer them.

Thank you.

[thaug]

Is that battery the 4-cell slimline or enhanced?

Anyway, that is pretty dismal battery life. Although, what I have heard is that Vista is a little overactive with the indexing for the first 2-3 weeks, and this causes a lot of extra disk thrashing. I think there are a few indexing settings that can be toned down.

Have you experimented with the BatteryStretch settings?

Couldn't easily tell, but does it have the UltraLight screen?

[tomh009]

I think that's the 4-cell slimline (prismatic) -- the enhanced is not, AFAIK, offered on the 7669 TopSeller models. And the slimline has 2000 mAh capacity rather than 2600 mAh.

Still, the battery life looks very short ... I would like to know how much disk activity there is while on battery.

[qviri]

I have to ask, what the hell?

Two hours is what I get in Linux on my X31 with an old battery ran down to 63% of original capacity. When I had Vista and undervolted, I could push three hours. The battery doesn't stick out the back, sits nice and flush under the palmrest (keeping it cool, too).

I thought battery technology was supposed to be improving. I guess I'll wait for X70...

[ctrler]

Oh... you're right, i've removed the battery and it's the 2.0 AH one. I'm really sorry.
With this one it's normal to have 2h of battery life?

Can I expect more than 5 hours with the 8 cell one?

The battery stretch only gives me 2 or 3 more minutes because all the settings are already on low (screen, processor, bluetooth off, etc).

I've installed XP and has the same battery life, I'm just curious about the drainage being arround 12W normaly, even thow I've seen more than one time a stable drainage of less than 10W, but after reboot it was on 12w again. All my mesurements where taken with the screen dimmed all the way down, only the wireless on, no usb, no sound and Power settings to MAX Battery. I've even changed the wireless card settings to max battery.

There is not that much disk usage, it's only normal browsing and msn messaging.

It doesn't have the ultra light display, the models that have the ultralight display have it specified in the specifications page on the lenovo site, but the display is great, if you put it on direct sunlight it will change colors but it is still perfectly readable, it looks like an old monocromatic cell phone when in direct sunlight.

My palmrest is warm to the touch but not unconfortable, I would describe the temperature like I've let the laptop on the sun for a bit (an hour or so). I can mesure it with a digital thermometer if you would like.

Feel free to ask more questions, I've read that some of you are waiting for your orders, but here in Portugal I've just went in a store and bought it. Can't build to order though.

I'm sorry for my bad english.