X220 Battery life w/ Slice

[lowlevelninja]

I, like many others, bought the X220 in large part because of the reputed battery life.  I didn't actually expect to get 20 hours of usage with the slice battery, but I figured 15 or so hours was a reasonable expectation.  At the moment my screen brightness is at 0, the Power Manager is set at Maximum Battery Life, the battery meter reads 99%, and I supposedly have 8 or so hours of battery life remaining - with the slice attached.  I'm using Chrome right now with 3 tabs open so I don't get it.  Do I need to (re)calibrate my batteries?  Am I missing the optimum settings?  Any help would be greatly appreciated in terms of maximizing my battery life.  

[ColonelONeill]

You should have around 8 hours on the 9-cell (no-slice) alone...

Open Power Manager while on battery under normal battery usage conditions, and go to the Battery tab. Look for wattage. This is the amount of power currently consumed.

Chrome tends to be a power hog, so I'd recommend going with IE9 or Firefox Aurora. (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/03/28/browser-power-consumption-leading-the-industry-with-in...

[lowlevelninja]

I appreciate your input. Under wattage the figure varies from 9.5 to just under 11 - I can't tell if that's good or bad.  My 6 cell alone was good for 7 hours of use before I got the slice battery.  I've been charging both batteries using the slice input as per the instructions, but I don't think that would affect the battery life of either.  I might just charge them separately when they run down to see if it makes a difference...not that I think it will or should.  I'll also check out that Firefox Aurora browser, thanks.

[joncordova]

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lowlevelninja wrote:

...Under wattage the figure varies from 9.5 to just under 11 - I can't tell if that's good or bad...

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Power Manager does simple division to calculate the remaining time. Say it draws 10 watts; the 6-cell has 65 watt hours, the 9-cell has 93 watt hours, and the slice has another 65 watt hours, I think. Let's say you have the two 6-cells, regular plus slice. You have 130 watt hours altogether. At a draw of 10 watts, you'll get 130/10 or 13 hours.

9.5 to 11 watts is great. Mine tends to idle at 25 watts, but I attribute it to a lot of Flash on the web pages (lots of tabs open concurrently) and keeping Task Manager open.