Solved! Gaming Laptop Battery Life: Fill me in!

huckfool

Distinguished
Jan 24, 2011
12
0
18,560
Hey everyone I've just been wondering about the battery life on a lot of top gaming laptop models with the new sandy bridge processors. In terms of specs and the battery life that I'm wondering about, it would be with a laptop with the i7 2630QM processor and the NVIDIA GTX 460M graphics card. Also a quick question is whether or not a laptop like this http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np8130-clevo-p151hm1-out-stock-eta-march-p-2973.html - the Sager NP8130 would be able to function for up to three hours, and whether or not there are any functions in the laptop that would allow me to conserve battery while i was just using word processor and not gaming

Thanks in advance ^^
 
Solution
With a really aggressive power saving setting and a low workload you might be able to squeeze out 3 hours.
I found a review were a Sandy Bridge i7-2630QM CPU, Nvidia GTX 460M GPU and 8GB of ram configured system managed it.

Asus G53SW review
And that reviewer was able to get 3.5 hours with screen brightness under 50% while surfing the net.
Look for his comments in the section after the review where he's talking to people leaving comments about his review.
With a really aggressive power saving setting and a low workload you might be able to squeeze out 3 hours.
I found a review were a Sandy Bridge i7-2630QM CPU, Nvidia GTX 460M GPU and 8GB of ram configured system managed it.

Asus G53SW review
And that reviewer was able to get 3.5 hours with screen brightness under 50% while surfing the net.
Look for his comments in the section after the review where he's talking to people leaving comments about his review.
 
Solution

huckfool

Distinguished
Jan 24, 2011
12
0
18,560
That's uplifting! I think that 3 and maybe a half hours would work fine. Over time would this degrade though?

As separate question, is it worth it to get the matte screen, because it's 160 bucks which is a fair amount and im not sure really what i'd be getting
 
Batteries will degrade over time. Depending on your usage pattern and workload, recharging cycles etc, you might need a battery replace around the 1.5 year point.

The matte screen would be useful in difficult lighting situation where glare from the screen would be especially bothersome.
An example of this might be an office setting when you're not able to adjust the lighting or move to an area where a glossy screen could be used without glare. This also applies to using a laptop outside. A matte screen makes this much easier.