Battery life for x300

[Valeri]

I just bought Thinkpad x300. Advertisement said 10 hrs of battery life. In reality i only get about 2 hrs of battering when using it and about 36 in a standby mode. That is very disappointing. Did i get a faulty battery? How can i replace it? is there any trick how to make it work longer?

V-

[vkyr]

Welcome to the forum!

Well let's say it straight, what is advertized and the plain common reality usage are often two different pair of shoes here. - I don't know what battery type you have inside your X300, but from the runtimes you named it might be the plain one. - The choosable battery options which Lenovo do offer for the X300 do allow runtimes between ~3,5h and ~9h, depending on which battery types you have build-in, the sort of system load you generate and the setup/enabled battery energie savings on the system. In order to reach about 9h you would need two batteries at all, namely the high capacity battery and the second optional battery which can be inserted into the optical drive slot.

For example and in order to give you an idea, the battery runtime for a X300 with the 43Wh high-capacity battery have been measured independently to be about  ~5.6h (7.7W) on low load and ~2.9h (14.9W) when using DVD-video load. If the display is dimmed on about 100 cd/m² the high capacity battery has a runtime of ~5.5h, on full brightness 236 cd/m² the battery reaches about ~4.5h.

However, all notebook vendors always tend to name the theoretical far max possible here in their advertisements, but don't ask me how they managed to reach those magic values, I honestly can't tell you.

[andyP]

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vkyr wrote:

...snip...
However, all notebook vendors always tend to name the theoretical far max possible here in their advertisements, but don't ask me how they managed to reach those magic values, I honestly can't tell you.

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It's in the small print which can be reached by clicking on the "note" numbers, on this page in the left column. So if you click on the small blue "60" next to battery you will arrive here which says;

Quote:

"Battery: These model numbers achieved the Ziff Davis Media, Inc.'s Business Winstone® 2002 BatteryMark Version 1.0, Battery Rundown Time of at least the time shown. This test was performed without independent verification by the VeriTest testing division of Lionbridge Technologies, Inc. ("VeriTest") or Ziff Davis Media, Inc.; neither Ziff Davis Media, Inc. nor VeriTest makes any representations or warranties as to these test results. Winstone is a registered trademark and BatteryMark is a trademark of Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. A description of the environment under which the test was performed is available at lenovo.com/pc/ww/thinkpad/batterylife.html. Battery life (and recharge times) will vary based on many factors including screen brightness, applications, features, power management, battery conditioning and other customer preferences."

[vkyr]

I see and now remember that I've seen it before... but still wonder that they stopped some former times to name the individual used settings for certain ThinkPad models.

[997TT]

As an almost general rule for manufacturer battery life claims, you should use HALF of the claimed time

if you're taking in consideration a full display brightness and permanent WiFi usage.

This "formula" doesn't always work, unfortunately Lenovo is one of the manufacturers where you have to use a more likely

40% of the claimed manufacturer battery life than the usual 50%.

To make it short: after a couple of charges and discharges(6 cell main battery and 3 cell bay battery instead of optical drive),

I get the following battery lifes(not 100% accurate but it gives you a little hin what to expect):

1. at 100% display brightness(setting battery operation brightness level to max in the BIOS too) and with permanent WiFi usage, I get around 5 hours REAL LIFE battery life. Pretty good for a 13'' laptop.

2. at aprox. 50-60% display brightness (leaving the manufacturer preset alone) and permanent WiFi usage, I get aprox. 6 hours battery life. 

3. with WWAN(HSDPA) permanent usage and at 100% display brightness, I get aprox. 4 hours battery life.

Meaning: the 3 cell bay battery is a MUST if you're using your X300 very often on the run.

I usually don't need the optical drive, just for initial install stuff. Actually the bay battery is a very good thing but I wish Lenovo would have found a more elegant way to release the optical drive from the bay and to hold the bay battery. The tiny screw is doing a good job of keeping the bay battery safe and it isn't difficult to unscrew it in a couple of seconds but you need a screwdriver and this is not a good solution. I also wish that Lenovo would supply some sort of soft protection pouch with the 3 bay battery, to be able to transport the optical drive in a safe way.

Anyway: as much as I hat to say this about the otherwise great X300 but battery life isn't really great without the bay battery.

Still: with the exception of the Macbook Air, actually none of the laptops with a 13'' or larger display have a battery life of REAL LIFE 3 hours using 100% display brightness and WiFi all the time. So actually the X300 battery life isn't too bad compared to the competion. Still no excuse for the need of the bay battery but as long as there is no "wonder solution" from of the major players on the laptop market, I guess Lenovo doesn't see the need for improvement in the battery life department.

[stimpy]

I'm getting terrible performance from my 3 cell battery. I removed the optical drive and it still doesn't last two hours. Also the Wireless is completely turned off and no USB.

I want to buy a battery to put in the bay slot where the OD was, but I can't figure out how to buy one from the Lenovo website? Is that not possible at this time?

[Thecla]

I got my X300 with the 6-cell battery, and I find I get about 3 hours in practice on max performance settings, with wireless + bluetooth, screen at max brightness, and more like 5-6 hours (very roughly) with screen on low/medium and power saving settings. That's generally fine for my needs but I am a bit surprised the battery life isn't longer given the backlit led, ssd, low voltage procesor etc.Maybe the 13.3" screens just wind up using a fair amount more power than a 12"?

I don't think the 3-cell battery would give enough time for me except for short trips away from a power source, but I ordered one recently for a lighter notebook when I don't need long battery life, and a spare to carry if I want additional life (I prefer that over trying to replace the DvD with a bay battery, since it doesn't seem to be recommended for frequent swapping).

Fortunately Lenovo has 3-cells for sale on their website, but I didn't see any 6-cells or bay batteries there. Some partners seem to have them though e.g. in France

http://www5.pc.ibm.com/fr/products.nsf/$wwwPartnumLookup/_43R1966?open&OpenDocument&epi=web_express

Moderator Note; converted to clickable link

Message Edited by andyP on 04-18-2008 09:28 AM

[stimpy]

Thanks Thecla. I don't know why I couldn't find this last week.

I hope you or someone else can answer this for me. If I place the battery that you linked in the bay where my OD was, will it give me additional overall battery time together with my main battery?

TIA!

[phazlehurst]

Yup, I just added the bay battery to my x300. Pretty easy to do. Needs a screwdriver though.

Battery burns out first in the bay and then in the main pc, and charges in the same order.

i've not benchmarked things, but my guess is that I get about an extra 2hrs from it... with about 3.5hrs from the main battery.

Personally, this seems a lot less than my x61... but it is a cooler laptop, that's for sure.

P

[Nicolas]

Hi,

Here is my contribution to this valuable post :

Point 5 : in addition to the screensaver blank option, you may also create a special "theme" with dark colors (black desktop, see tab 2, and color model with dark backgrounds, see tab 4). When you need more battery autonomy, all you have to do is to activate the theme, because the dark colors will use up less battery energy. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Point 6 : I would desactivate all those devices you never use or don't use much oftem, such as the 56K data-fax modem, the plug & play screen, the PCMCIA (unless you use it), the Ethernet card (if you work with wifi), etc ..

I only have ONE QUESTION remaining, about Point 2 :

Assuming the surge in AC supply is 100% reliable, Is it a good idea FOR THE BATTERY LIFE, to remove it when you work with AC supply ??  There was no conclusion on this debate between your post and the comments.

Nicolas