Which X3x gets the longest battery life?

[asiafish]

I currently have an X30, and was wondering if the X31 or X32 can run longer or shorter on a charge. X30's performance is mostly adequate, but its video card isn't up to the challenge of watching downloaded TV shows on iTunes, which the X32 (and presumably X31 which has the same video card) does fine. I would move to an X31 if battery life doesn't suffer from the X30, but as it is not my primary computer, I'd prefer to keep the X30 if it runs longer on a charge.

My best with the X30 is a hair under 6 hours on the main cell.

[billp117]

The X30 has great battery life...you will be happy with the unit. It does most everything and is very reliable.

Six hours would be best for me with a new battery. I can get three hours from a five year old battery with almost 200 cycles.

[tomh009]

The X31 tends to be a little better than the X32 on battery life, but six hours might still be tough. My undervolted X31 can do between three and four hours depending on usage -- but my battery is up to 801 cycles now, so that doesn't help.

[asiafish]

The question though is whether the X31 can outlast the X30, assuming the same aggressive power management and the same brand-new battery.

[tomh009]

Alas, I don't know anyone who has done an actual direct comparison test.

[pianowizard]

According to the Tawbook and Ltwbook, the X30 gets the least whereas the X31 and X32 are similar.

[ragefury32]

Assuming new/low cycle count cell and NHC usage? I'll say the X31.

The Dothan in the X32 is slightly more power hungry, and the Speedstep in the X30 does not step down low enough.

That being said, the Dothan is also slightly better performance/watt-wise due to more aggressive cache management, a slightly better floating point unit, and more cache capacity.

[RageRover]

I just bought a new battery (generic off eBay). I get over 5.5 hours on my X30 using NHS. Since my battery is new, I have yet to test it to the max, but I am sure I can get closer and possibly over 6 hours.

I did wish I can undervolt the CPU a bit more, it only steps down to 800mhz. Only when the battery is close to being drained does it then jump down to ~490 mhz.

I installed an Atheros abg card (yes, I had to use the no-1802 hack).

I purchased a new 17" HP not too long ago....I have no used it in months! I let my gf have it. I do everything on my X30.

I'm a student, so most of my day is spent using office, itunes and Mozilla or Opera. But I download and watch my fair share of Divx/Xvid/AVI. I honestly don't think an X31 would be any difference performance wise.

The only thing I wish the X30 had was USB 2.0. But for $8 (off eBay) i purchased a USB 2.0 PCMCIA card, so problem solved. I also use firewire a lot.

[asiafish]

I just bought a new battery (generic off eBay). I get over 5.5 hours on my X30 using NHS. Since my battery is new, I have yet to test it to the max, but I am sure I can get closer and possibly over 6 hours.

I did wish I can undervolt the CPU a bit more, it only steps down to 800mhz. Only when the battery is close to being drained does it then jump down to ~490 mhz.

I installed an Atheros abg card (yes, I had to use the no-1802 hack).

I purchased a new 17" HP not too long ago....I have no used it in months! I let my gf have it. I do everything on my X30.

I'm a student, so most of my day is spent using office, itunes and Mozilla or Opera. But I download and watch my fair share of Divx/Xvid/AVI. I honestly don't think an X31 would be any difference performance wise.

The only thing I wish the X30 had was USB 2.0. But for $8 (off eBay) i purchased a USB 2.0 PCMCIA card, so problem solved. I also use firewire a lot.

X31 or X32 have much better video, but otherwise I concur on the overall system performance. I have an X31 and my daughter an X30, and for most tasks they are indistinguishable.

I get around the lack of USB2 on the X30 by using a combo USB2/FireWire enclosure for my external drive (the only speed-dependent USB device I own), and actually find that while the rated speed is a bit slower, FireWire is actually a lot faster for sustained transfers.

[meshua]

Hi,

the lack of USB2 isn't really an issue since I only use it for USB Sticks. And those sticks can't perform same as harddisks...so I really don't care about that fact. Another story is about CD/DVD drives. I'm the lucky one owning a external drive that comes w/ both USB2+IEEE1394. Only while installing something out of Windows (like OS installation) I suffer a bit. Under Windows I use X30's FireWire connectivity to hook up my external NEC DVD burner...and it runs like charm.
Video card is not the fastest but fine for office+web. Only when you scroll on some web sites the X30 gets stuck a bit due to processor usage of almost 100%. However the battery performs awesome. That's why I'll stick with my X30 for the next months as my secondary notebook (primary is a T60) for traveling and every day office use

Brgds, Torsten

[tomh009]

the lack of USB2 isn't really an issue since I only use it for USB Sticks. And those sticks can't perform same as harddisks...

Memory sticks are generally capable of speeds in the range of 5 MB/s, three or four times as fast as USB 1.1. That said, you may be moving only small amounts of data so that speed may well be acceptable to you.

I agree on the Firewire solution for external disks and optical drives, though it's a bit harder to find those.