Loading ...I currently have a MacBook Pro, and besides technically being a great laptop, the battery life (in my opinion) is really bad, around 2.5hrs. I talk to other mobile friends and aparently this is the norm. Norm or not, I don’t consider a computer “mobile” until I can take it somewhere and use it for atleast 4 hours, preferably 5, and anything over 5 just makes my eyes sparkle with happiness.
Alot of comments I’ve gotten recently are “So what, just take your charger with you”, well if I always need to be within 2′ of an electrical outlet, it’s not really a mobile solution anymore, so this doesn’t cut it.
The laptop I’ve been looking at replacing my MacBook Pro is the ThinkPad T60 with the 9-cell battery. I’ve been all over the web trying to find information about the battery life on it and here is what I have so far (times are linked to the reviews the info came from, rating in parens rating the battery life is my own qualification):
- 3hrs 42minutes (6/10)
- 5hrs 16mins (7/10)
- 5hrs 50mins (8/10)
- 7hrs 30mins (Jesus/10)
Can someone help me out here? The last test uses the Intel integrated crap-graphics and show 3D scores of like 5fps in 2-year old games, but almost 8 hours of battery life? In their “most typical web browsing tests with ‘Max Battery Life’ setting” the laptop eeked out just under 9 hours! That is absolutely incredible. Let’s look at the differences:
- Reviews #1, #2, #3 use the 2.0Ghz Core Duo chip
- Reviews #1, #2, #3 use the ATI X1400 Graphics Chip
- Reviews #1, #2, #3 use the 15″ 1400×1050 Screen
And the reason Review #4 got such insanely high scores seem to be:
- Review #4 uses the integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
- Review #4 uses the 1.83 Core Duo chip
- Review #4 uses the 14.1″ 1400×1050 Screen
So cutting .17Ghz off the speed of your chip, 0.9 inches off the screen (keeping the same resolution) and using the integrated Intel graphics chip means you get in the ballpark of 2 more hours out of your laptop battery? Sign me up!
I would probably order the T60 setup like Review #4 right now if I didn’t have concerns for both the Core 2 Duo chips which aparently don’t use anymore power than the current series and are even faster and additionally the inability of the Intel graphics chipset to do any 3D at all; I would like the option atleast to run Vista on my laptop when it comes out, even though it probably won’t be laptop friendly until after the first 1 or 2 major service pack releases and OEMs have more than a year with it to port over all their utilities (unless that’s been happening in the background?).
Either way, the first review really made me want to pass on the entire idea, but the 3 other reviews really made me want to get the ThinkPad T60, but then #4 made me nervous again because those numbers are just rediculously high… atleast from what I’m experiencing with mobile computing in general.
If anyone had any input or comments on this I’d love to hear them. I’m sort of in the dark right now and done all the research I can, short of buying it. (Digg this)
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August 16th, 2006 at 5:51 pm
i just got a new thinkpad T60, 14.1″ screen w/ the 9 cell battery, i get about 5 hours battery life
August 16th, 2006 at 5:56 pm
Compared to the “9 hrs” that review #4 claims with the similar machine, I have to be equally confused as I was before now as to what a *real* number for these ThinkPads are.
September 23rd, 2006 at 7:19 pm
The T60 comes in different configurations. The ones with the internal graphic card (GMA950) last about 2 hours more then those with the external graphic card (ATI X1300), both with a 6 cell battery. Other factors is processor size (power usage), Ram (more is better, less use of harddisc), battery size and screen brightness. Hope this helps.
September 23rd, 2006 at 8:35 pm
Erik,
You are exactly right. After doing quite a bit more research (before getting my T60) I found just what you said, getting the integrated graphics will extend battery life considerably and then of course the monitor is the 2nd biggest change (getting the super high rest 1600×1200 monitor in the T60p for example shortens battery life by up to almost 3 hours in bad cases).
Unfortunately the integrated Intel graphics chip is so incredbily bad at performance that the highest resolution you can push the monitor at is 1024×768… which may not be bad for some folks. As a software developer it was a bit of a problem for me.
I ended up getting a T60 w/ 9 cell and Ultrabay battery. With conservative power saving setting and monitor on the lowest settings I can get 8 hours, if I turn of brightness to about 3/4 (working in a well lit environment) and am programming (lots of CPU activity) I get about 5hours. Overall a decent spread considering I was comming from 2hrs 30mins from the MacBook Pro.
October 9th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
Have IBM T60 issued by university. Battery life after 1 year - 20 minutes.
November 10th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
I have a T60 and after 14 months, battery life about 1 hr. Not worth getting out at airport while waiting on plane.
November 10th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
RW you should be able to order another battery from Lenovo without much hassle.
I might suggest the 9 cell. I’ve had my T60 for a little over a year and can still get about 3hrs of battery life, it’s doing pretty well hanging in there.
December 31st, 2007 at 7:42 am
I have had bad experiences of T60 batteries. I had to replace ultrabay battery about 2 months from purchase, and now the new is going broken too (50% capacity left after 4 months of replacement). The main battery has also gone bad, it can take 35Wh charge of its original 56Wh capacity.
December 31st, 2007 at 8:03 am
Pekka,
I had exactly the same experience. The ultra-bay batteries, interestingly enough, are Sony batteries while the 9-cell are Fujitsu. The Ultra-bay are *trash*… I got a full replacement after 2 months, and after another 3 months it was already down below 1/2 charge capacity. They are completely pointless to get.
January 5th, 2008 at 9:34 am
I have been using my T60 for about a year and a half and the original 9-cell battery is still showing 78 watt-hours after the last fuel gauge reset. I still get close to 5 hours doing pretty extensive programming…although i do keep the display turned down as far as possible. the display setting makes a huge difference on run time. i design notebook and tablet computers and there are a few things you can do to get maximum life from your batteries. to get long life, never charge the batteries above about 96-97%. keeping them always charged to 100% will significantly shorten battery life and the last few % do not significantly affect run time. this is just a characteristic of li-ion cells. the ultra bay battery is a li-polymer cell. the li-poly cells have much shorter life spans than the li-ion cells, particularly if they are kept warm, which they would be buried under the tablet. for the same price you can buy another 9-cell battery and get much more bang for the buck.
January 5th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Phil, very interesting followup. I’ve been using my laptop as a desktop for the last few months out of convenience (always plugged in)… my guess is that my 9-cell is shot by now
January 11th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
They do have a high capacity one that you can get for this model. The 9 cell one still has a 5200mAh rating, I belive on the OEM one. I got one at simplemicro.com for $65 (generic though) at this link:
https://www.simplemicro.com//replacement-thinkpad-t60-battery_987.html
It is 6600mAh, slightly bettery than the original ones capacity.
January 11th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Sanj thanks for the link. How’d you get it for $65, I see it listed for $89 at that link?
March 18th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
http://www.laptopbatterymart.com/laptop-batteries/ibm-thinkpad-t60-series.htm
I had bought the T60 battery at this website for one year, it’s very good
November 20th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
They do have a high capacity one that you can get for this model. The 9 cell one still has a 6600mAh rating, I got one at http://www.diggingshop.com for 80.49 at this link:
http://www.diggingshop.com/laptop-battery/ibm-thinkpad-t60.htm