[snakester]

I tried searching for this, but there seems to be nothing about it. Maybe I'm just bad at searching or something.

I just got myself a Mini 10v at Walmart last week, and the battery life seems to be quite abysmal. It came with the 3-Cell battery, and playing around with it I seem to only get two hours out of it under EXTREMELY light use, and when I start using it a bit, that drops to about 1:15-1:30. Under heavy load I get about an hour. I'm tri-booting right now, and all the OSes I use (UNR, 7 and XP) have similar results.

I was under the impression that netbooks are supposed to have superior battery life than laptops, but under no to little load my freaking two year old Pavilion (with a two year old battery) beats my mini 10v. Sure, I can run wPrime and kill the Pavilion in 30-45 minutes, but light web browsing and they're about equal. Does it sound like I have a bad battery or am I just expecting too much out of the 3cell battery?

[rrfranczak3]

you are expecting too much, a fully charged NEW battery will only last about 2hrs or so give or take a few minutes....if you want more you gotta buy the 6 cell battery, I would stay away from third party batteries and be careful on ebay also, I recommend getting it from Dell, yes you will pay more but you know what you are getting and it wont hurt your machine and it comes with a warranty, then you will get around 5 - 5 1/2 hours give or take a few minutes....I can get sometimes 6 6-1/2 if I turn down the brightness and just use it for the internet & browsing and stuff, playing games or watching movies will decrease that accordingly...Good Luck......

PS. Welcome to the forum..

You can also try turning off the wi-fi and bluetooth (if you have it), that will help some too

[snakester]

Originally Posted by rrfranczak3

you are expecting too much, I fully charged NEW battery will only last about 2hrs or so give or take a few minutes....if you want more you gotta buy the 6 cell battery, I would stay away from third party batteries and becareful on ebay also, I recommend getting it from Dell, yes you will pay more but you know what you are getting and it wont hurt your machine and it comes with a warranty, then you will get around 5 - 5 1/2 hours give or take a few minutes....I can get sometimes 6 6-1/2 if I turn down the brightness and just use it for the internet & browsing and stuff, playing games or watching movies will decrease that accordingly...Good Luck......

Cool, thanks. I guess I was expecting half of what you can get out of the 6cell, but i guess it doesn't work that way . I've heard stories of batteries either A: being bad out of the box or B: sitting on the shelf for too long and degrading, so I figured I'd check here before calling Dell. Guess its time to start saving up for the 6 cell.

[rrfranczak3]

Yup..it is..also read the additional comment above, I added it after you responded

[sedj]

Some people just dont get it.

A netbook is 3/4 the size of a laptop and the battery is 3/4 the size of a laptop and they expect it to last longer ... lol

3 cell battery is on par with full size lappy

6 cell gives another 2 hours or more.

[holmes4]

But the processor in a netbook draws much less power than one in a standard notebook, so the smaller battery may last longer. My Mini 9 lasts longer than my much larger (and heavier) HP 8510w.

[rrfranczak3]

yeah Steve I know what ya mean, my 17inch HP lasts about 15minutes now, even new it only lasted about 1hr20-25min...now almost 5yrs old 15min is all I get, but it is never unplugged so I dont care, aint worth replacing the battery either, it weighs just under 10lbs, but with dual pentium 4 processors running at 3.2ghz what do ya want...its quick as hell, just dont go anywhere with it...my Mini 10 under 3lbs,6cell gets 5 1/2hr cant complain there...some people just cant relate to that I guess...