Was about to buy a new laptop but then...

[martijn12345]

Always take any information about battery life from the producer with a pinch of salt. Any half decent tech-review website however will measure these things, and will tell you clearly in which setup they do this test. Normal test would be putting the screen on a fixed brightness and let it load webpages in a loop or watch a certain video till the battery dies. This kind of test should make results compareable.

If you use a laptop with the charges connected most of the time, it's better to take the battery out. Let it go down to about 50%, never leave it fully charged, never leave it completely empty. Put it somewhere dry and cool.

U can leave it in the laptop, but over the long run it will cause your capacity to deteriorate. Many laptops nowadays have a setting to not fully charge the battery, but charge it only to say 80%, this seems to at least decrease the problem but I have not really read into this.

[asupeartea]

Got my GF a Samsung Note 2 for her birthday and she gets endless hours using it on WiFi, like 14. I'm sitting next to her doing pretty much the same thing on my Google/ASUS Nexus 7 and get about 5-6 hours, both pulled off the chargers right beforehand. I have to plugin and she puts hers to sleep and uses it 2 more times before recharging.

Edited June 15, 2013 by asupeartea

[Surasak]

I have an Acer Aspire 4820TG. IT's battery life is quoted as 8 hours! IT also has alittle label stating 'Battery life varies by usage settings and operation conditions.

When using on battery it can sometimes last for about 4 hours which is reasonably good. When using at home I remove the battery and just plug into the mains. Works a treat.

[wcoast]

Battery life is always quoted using the longest time with the most minimal resources. Of course manufacturers will use the highest number possible so their product looks in the best light. These numbers in no way represent real world useage.

[Always18]

and a replacement battery will likely cost more than the computer is worth.

I also thought that until I had to replace the battery in my 4yr old Dell Studio 1555 - total cost was £19 (inc tracked postage) from a Chinese eBay seller..............very happy bunny!

[starkey_rich]

I have an earlier Satellite laptop than this one.

Worst piece of s--t I have ever bought.

Nothing but trouble from day one and today it has shut down twice of its own accord and have to re-boot in safe mode.

Had Acer and Dell before. Much better.

This one is going out of the window shortly.

[thatguy]

Honest guy in the shop. Even OEM batteries have come down in price from the big battery houses, if you need to carry a spare. I usually use mine plugged in and I doubt it would last 5 hrs unplugged. I let it run down to nothing before I use it again and it still works fine.

[BangkokHank]

I have had several laptops over the years and I have never had a battery last longer than 2 1/2 hours to 3 hours while using my laptop and, indeed, with more frequent use and the passage of time, this battery life then tends to shrink down and down.

Right. When I bought my Toshiba netbook a year ago, the battery lasted for a full 8 or 9 hours. I was very pleased. But now, a mere year later, I'm lucky to get 2 hours out of it.

[davidstipek]

I just bought a toshiba portege z935 and pleased with battery life - yesterday, I unplugged it after fully charging, and with on and off wifi usage throughout the day, it lasted 5 hours. Probably 2.5 hours of that was usage with bright screen. Definitely preserve battery life by fully charging and fully discharging.

Am going to check your link out for sure - http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3597&article=wireless+and+battery+power

And check this out, too. http://www.friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-your-laptop-battery-life/

My laptop preserves battery life by not fully charging, ie stopping at 80% or better still 50%...... obviously this applies to a machine that spends most of it's life plugged in, and when I do unplug it and use it some-place else I am often caught out by the low battery charge. Just something to keep in mind for preserving battery condition, which is regarded as a consumable.

So why don't you do a 100% charge before taking it out? Or is it that you sometimes forget to do that...?

How do you "Bump" your battery charge to 100%??? When it is shutting off charge at 50-80%....

[Thighlander]

and a replacement battery will likely cost more than the computer is worth.

I also thought that until I had to replace the battery in my 4yr old Dell Studio 1555 - total cost was £19 (inc tracked postage) from a Chinese eBay seller..............very happy bunny!

19 GBP for a 4 year old Dell, with a dead battery? Sounds pretty close.

[rmacee]

Battery, Battery, battery .... - not the only reason for consideration ..

Basically .. you get what you pay for and if you look after it [battery] ... charge it (and not overnight ...) and use it and not let it plugged it etc.

Laptops are all about performance, screen quality HD etc, screen size, weight, memory and hard drive or SSD .. solid state, with or without CD/DVD player etc.

Spend as much as you can .. there is no cheap good laptop ..

Last time I bought a ASUS Zenbook UX series ... OK Apple is superb but I don't want to be stuck with everything Apple ... iTunes, Apple's operating system etc.

[ASUS] Brilliant piece of kit .. 4GB memory, excellent HD screen, 128Gb SSD, super light, super slim, ..great for traveling etc.

If it was a car it probably done 100K KMs .. and used every day and still get 5/6 hours out of the battery ...subject to playing video which is a major drain on any battery ..

You make your choice and pay the price ... in this case 40,000 bt (£800)

Pet subject !!

[thongsuknork]

ASUS SC30 4 GB, Ram ,500 GB HD,8Hours Battery,i5 processor ,3317U ,21000THB ,ie Best buy in one mall Korat

[thongsuknork]

Forgot Touch Screen Laptop ,Windows 8,fantastic laptop

[Deserted]

Thanks, I will look into that.

[davidstipek]

I just bought a toshiba portege z935 and pleased with battery life - yesterday, I unplugged it after fully charging, and with on and off wifi usage throughout the day, it lasted 5 hours. Probably 2.5 hours of that was usage with bright screen. Definitely preserve battery life by fully charging and fully discharging.

Am going to check your link out for sure - http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3597&article=wireless+and+battery+power

And check this out, too. http://www.friedbeef.com/top-15-ways-to-extend-your-laptop-battery-life/

My laptop preserves battery life by not fully charging, ie stopping at 80% or better still 50%...... obviously this applies to a machine that spends most of it's life plugged in, and when I do unplug it and use it some-place else I am often caught out by the low battery charge. Just something to keep in mind for preserving battery condition, which is regarded as a consumable.

So why don't you do a 100% charge before taking it out? Or is it that you sometimes forget to do that...?

How do you "Bump" your battery charge to 100%??? When it is shutting off charge at 50-80%....

Waiting... How do you bump a charge from 80% to 100%??? DOCNO?????? need to know, If it works great as we use our systems in field and only source to recharge during the day is 12DCV source from Vehicle.

[Jiu-Jitsu]

I have an earlier Satellite laptop than this one.

Worst piece of s--t I have ever bought.

Nothing but trouble from day one and today it has shut down twice of its own accord and have to re-boot in safe mode.

Had Acer and Dell before. Much better.

This one is going out of the window shortly.

Writing this on a four year old Toshiba Satellite. Cost me the equivalent of 11250 baht. You can get a lemon with any brand. Vista caused a few problems for some.

[Jiu-Jitsu]

Battery, Battery, battery .... - not the only reason for consideration ..

Basically .. you get what you pay for and if you look after it [battery] ... charge it (and not overnight ...) and use it and not let it plugged it etc.

Laptops are all about performance, screen quality HD etc, screen size, weight, memory and hard drive or SSD .. solid state, with or without CD/DVD player etc.

Spend as much as you can .. there is no cheap good laptop ..

Last time I bought a ASUS Zenbook UX series ... OK Apple is superb but I don't want to be stuck with everything Apple ... iTunes, Apple's operating system etc.

[ASUS] Brilliant piece of kit .. 4GB memory, excellent HD screen, 128Gb SSD, super light, super slim, ..great for traveling etc.

If it was a car it probably done 100K KMs .. and used every day and still get 5/6 hours out of the battery ...subject to playing video which is a major drain on any battery ..

You make your choice and pay the price ... in this case 40,000 bt (£800)

Pet subject !!

Utter rubbish!! I always buy inexpensive laptops. The most that I have ever spent on a laptop was around 300GBP. I have a brand new boxed Toshiba that I can't use, because my more than four year old Toshiba just keep on going, even after spending years in humid conditions. My girlfriend's ACER (bought in Thailand in 2007) refuses to show any signs of aging.

Unless you need the performance of an expensive laptop, you are simply a mug for purchasing one. I buy for less than half the price that you pay, then in a few years, the other half of the cash with pay for a upgraded laptop that will outperform the dated machine that you might still possess.

Not just that, I don't need to treat the thing as a prized possession if I've only spent the equivalent of 11 to 12k baht on it. I take care of it, but don't wet myself thinking of SSDs and the latest craze. I can watch HD movies and work on documents in much the same way as you. Only battery life is average with this machine.

Edited June 16, 2013 by Jiu-Jitsu

[shiroboi]

I would absolutely hold off on buying a laptop now. It is a bad time to buy a laptop. The new Haswell chips are coming (both mac and PC) and it is having a major impact on battery life. The new macbook air with the Haswell chipset saw around a 50% boost in battery life. That should hold somewhat true for PCs as well. Either way, it's worth the wait.

[rjcampbe]

Disclaimer that I have worked for a major computer industry company for 17 years and my previous job before coming to Thailand was in performance marketing, including system battery life. Suffice to say that I know a bit about this topic.

As has been stated in the forum, battery life depends on workload... If you are playing games, editing video, or any other heavy task, your battery life will be shorter than if the machine is sitting idle. However, other things, like type of display, the brightness setting on the display, and whether or not you are using external HDD's or the DVD player, will impact on battery life even more than the CPU power required to deliver the workload.

So, the challenge in specing battery life on a given PC is to create a reasonable "typical workload". Your reasonable workload is likely to be very different from mine...

Given the impossibility of creating a workload that is representative of every user, the industry has resorted to using benchmark tests such as MobileMark from BAPCo to measure battery life. http://bapco.com/about/news/bapco-releases-mobilemark-2012 There has been a lot of debate about whether or not the workload in the MobileMark test is a "typical workload" or not. Per my previous comment, there really is no such thing as a "typical workload" so the MobileMark test, and others like it, at least provide a common workload, with a specified set of tasks and system settings, so that it is reapeatable. Therefore, when testing multiple computers against this common workload, it is possible to provide a specification of battery life per that common test, and therefore provide a way to compare the battery life of one PC relative to others.

So, if you look at 2 PC's which have a 5 and 7 hour rating, respectively, you can expect to have longer battery life on the 7 hour system than on the 5 hour system, regardless of your actual workload... but it is unlikely that you will get the full 7 hours.

What you have probably encountered here is a spec quoted by the manufacturer that was tested with a benchmark test in the lab and the opinion of the salesperson that the expected battery life in what he considers "typical use" will deliver something less. I would expect that the actual battery life you experience would be somewhere between those extremes, but probably a bit closer to the salesman's estimate than the theoretical maximum.

It is unlikely that they are selling you a substandard battery or some similar underhanded move.

[phazey]

I like all the love for macs here when it comes to battery life, just please keep in mind that most recent macs don't offer the fallback of replacing the internal battery easily. I'm a happy owner of a rMBP - but still have an old 2006 macbook, which has chewed through 9 batteries up until now.....

[DekDaeng]

I would absolutely hold off on buying a laptop now. It is a bad time to buy a laptop. The new Haswell chips are coming (both mac and PC) and it is having a major impact on battery life. The new macbook air with the Haswell chipset saw around a 50% boost in battery life. That should hold somewhat true for PCs as well. Either way, it's worth the wait.

http://store.apple.com/th?afid=p219%7CGOTH&cid=AOS-TH-KWG

& You could watch the 2013 WWC keynote - will give you an idea of the system integration.

Vs 'dis - integration'.

Been Mac since 1984 - some friends pissed with me for not pushing Macs onto them some years ago.

[keith7777]

This computer buying here in Pattaya is a very dodggie, I purchased a samsung computer and the place I purchased said they had to take it for a few hours to set all the proper controls. Well since that time I am unable to control my computer because when I change a program and when I go back to look again it is back in the position it was before I changed, In some cases I cannot change the settings as they are controlled by samsung or some place else. I am convinced that my computer was tampered with and divices were added to it so that it could be controlled by some other entity. The thing over heats all the time and the wireless service does not last the full month (I pay 960Baht for a month - guess that is too cheap) and the computer will not play any site movies such as youtube without constant pausing. Man this is the worse service and the worse computer I have ever had. I purchased a computer in the states and took it home with me and when I turned it on there were instructions on start up and how to get going with Wifi. Worked perfectly after that and it only took a few minutes. I know very little about computers as I never had any training, but man my experience here has been a disaster!!!!!!

[KRS1]

1st laptop - Toshiba satellite 17" (CPU Core 2 Duo 2.2ghz)...always hot, battery lasted 1.5 hours, always hung up (windows XP), constantly reformatting and reloading windows, too many times to count, speakers suck...never died, sold it because it was so big and keyboard felt like jello....was a gift

2nd laptop - Acer Aspire 5745 (CPU i5)....NEVER hot, very thin, 2.5 hour battery life, hung up once or twice a month, only had to reformat 4 times in 3 years, good keyboard, just dies all of a sudden the 'controller' fried..would cost 6000 baht to fix with new mainboard, screw it, buy new one instead, speakers ok....price...17k baht

3rd laptop (current) - Lenovo Z380 (CPU i5)... stays cool but gets warm with graphic intensive use, hasnt hung up in 3 months of use, battery 4 hours, fan has setting to blow dust out the vent (awesome, like that) not too fat and not too thin....im thinking th ethin ones die faster do to less heatsinking, awesome speakers....price 18k baht

[Jiu-Jitsu]

This computer buying here in Pattaya is a very dodggie, I purchased a samsung computer and the place I purchased said they had to take it for a few hours to set all the proper controls. Well since that time I am unable to control my computer because when I change a program and when I go back to look again it is back in the position it was before I changed, In some cases I cannot change the settings as they are controlled by samsung or some place else. I am convinced that my computer was tampered with and divices were added to it so that it could be controlled by some other entity. The thing over heats all the time and the wireless service does not last the full month (I pay 960Baht for a month - guess that is too cheap) and the computer will not play any site movies such as youtube without constant pausing. Man this is the worse service and the worse computer I have ever had. I purchased a computer in the states and took it home with me and when I turned it on there were instructions on start up and how to get going with Wifi. Worked perfectly after that and it only took a few minutes. I know very little about computers as I never had any training, but man my experience here has been a disaster!!!!!!

Probably you'll need to run a clean install of the OS, doing it yourself.

Full model number?