Dell claims a maximum 19 hours of battery life!!!

[milstein]

http://blogs.computerworld.com/dell_tar ... tal_nomads

How do they do that??? That's extremely impressive if the laptop can support up to 19 hours of normal use without plugging in.

[jdhurst]

We can only wait and see. With a normal battery (not the bulbous extensions), makers have not even approached 8 - 10 hours.

I would be nothing short of overjoyed to have a laptop that I could turn on at 7:30am, and would be still burning brightly at 5:30pm on a single charge. Nothing I have comes close - new battery or otherwise.

BTW: Not using the hard drive, not using wireless, dim unreadable screen, not running heavy duty applications or using an additional battery (appendage) doesn't count. For Dell to make the claim, it seems to me that it needs to run normally with no strings attached.
... JDH

[milstein]

I'm suspecting that they count the time that the battery can last for running of their pre-boot system with a dedicated low-voltage chipset: and say that's 19 hours.

Or else, there must be some really major breakthrough in battery or energy saving technology, e.g. the e-ink display that can last for 50 hours without charging.

[Temetka]

If it is 19 hours in the field, I will be getting my boss to buy me one.

[msb0b]

Dell uses an battery slice plus the extended battery to achieve the 19 hours figure. The slice mounts on the bottom of the laptop that adds to the thickness but does not increase the footprint. It is similar in concept to X61's media slice.

I found this picture of the slice that should give you a better idea. Dell has published how they reached 19 hours in their testing in this PDF document. The battery slice is listed at $399.

[Temetka]

I've been wondering when we'd see batteries like that.