[PLUG] Battery life; was: Looking for suggestions / first-hand experience with tablet PCs.

[John Jason Jordan]

On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 06:29:03 -0700 (PDT)
Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com> dijo:

> On Fri, 19 Sep 2008, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> 
> > The majority of the problem is power management in Linux, which evidently
> > is not as smart as the Windows version.
> 
>    Interesting comment. On all the portables I've owned (Toshibas, IBMs,
> Sony) the battery life I get with my linux installations is about twice that
> reported by the manufacturer with the default Winduhs installation.

I should have added that my T61 has the nVidia Quadro 140M. As I have
read often on the Thinkpad e-list, nVidia graphics will suck a lot more
current than the Intel or ATI options. 

I should also have added that I currently use Hardy x86_64, upgraded
from Gutsy. When I had Gutsy the battery life was an hour and a half.
One thing that happened after the upgrade to Hardy was that the screen
went dim after a few seconds of non-use while on battery. That never
happened with Gutsy. I think there were some other enhancements to
power management in Hardy, but I don't recall all of them. I think this
affected only the x86_64 versions - 32-bit users had better power
management from the beginning.

Also, when I am on battery it is because I am away from home, which is
wired for ethernet. I don't even use wireless at home. But when away
from home I am using wireless constantly, and that is a known power
sucker.

Fortunately for me, the two and a half hours I get now is adequate.
There are no classes that last more than two hours, and if I am in the
library there are always places available with an outlet for the brick. 

It is interesting to note the wide variety of experiences that people
here have with laptop battery life. There are a great many variables.