Purchasing a laptop that you will want to keep rests on several factors. In my last post I talked about size. Laptops that are too large tend to break and also tend to be quite a pain to drag around with you.

Battery Life is Critical To Your Future Laptop

In this post I want to talk a little bit about battery life and why it is so critical to your enjoyment of a laptop. I’m not going to pretend that I know your every desire, but the overall trend with people and technology is that people expect technology to perform at god-like quality. This means that if you order a laptop, chances are you expect it to be portable. Now, you may have listened to me and started looking at smaller laptops. That does not mean that the battery will last. Laptops have different size batteries, different quality batteries, and different technology. A small laptop with a graphics processor is not going to last nearly as long as a laptop that isn’t equipped with one. A laptop with a 6-cell battery is not going to last as long as a laptop with a 9-cell. The secret to finding how long a battery life your laptop has is to search on Google for product reviews of the laptop you are looking for. Use what the company you want to purchase from tells you as a guide but do not trust their tests as they often manipulate the data for advertising purposes.

Product Reviews Are Your Best Guide

Though I cannot vouch that product reviews will always be legit or correct, you can look up the laptop that you want to purchase simply by searching Google for a phrase like: “laptopname review.” So a Dell XPS 1210 would be something like “XPS 1210 review.” Most people who review products will give you the good and the bad as well as the battery life of the machine you are looking at. While not always accurate, they are more trustworthy than the statistics the company releases.

Why Battery Life Is So Critical

As I mentioned above, if you are anything like me then you expect only the best out of your laptop. When I found out that the laptop I had purchased only had an hour and a half of battery life at best I got really upset about the matter. I barely could sit through one college course and take notes! That was rather useless to me and I felt like I had wasted my money on this laptop. My guess is that you have an expectation of the laptop that you purchase already as well. You expect that you’ll be able to unplug it and take it with you places — because that is what laptops are made to do.

I got bad news for you. Many laptops don’t have a stellar battery life. It is up to you now to find a laptop which has a fairly good battery life. I recommend that you find one with a life of three hours or more. This often pushes up the price, but laptops with a battery life of two hours or less tend to just be grand disappointments when it comes to working without plugging in.

So if you don’t care about going places and plugging into a wall socket then a long battery life may not be for you. But if you are looking for a laptop that can “shine its light when all other lights go out” then you are going to want to invest in battery life.

Unfortunately, Battery Life Often Balances Against System Performance

Battery life often goes hand in hand with system performance. Longer battery life means a slower and less capable computer. Batteries are getting better and better so we are seeing longer battery life in faster machines but be aware when you are buying to look for the balance between battery life and the capabilities of the laptop.

Some laptop qualities which help battery life:

• Generally machines with 12″-14″ screens have the best battery life.
• Graphics processors (3D graphic cards such as the GeForce Go or ATI Xpress) tend to remove hours off of a laptop’s batterylife.
• Obviously a larger battery tends to lengthen battery life.
• Some laptops can have a battery purchased to replace the CDROM Drive. If you don’t mind not being able to use CDs (or you have an external drive you can use instead) then adding a second battery is great for your machine.
• There are many universal batteries which you can purchase that actually plug in where your power cord plugs in. These universal batteries can give you another hour or two of battery life by fooling your laptop to thinking that it is plugged in, when in reality, it is just plugged into the battery. Of course this means that you need to carry around this external battery which is heavy and clunky.

I have found that I naturally expect laptops to last when it comes to battery life. I don’t mind doing a few things to making sure that the battery lasts a bit longer, but I expect the battery to do just that. A battery that doesn’t last more than three hours is going to cause you to regret your purchase at one time or another. Do your best to find your balance between a powerful laptop and a powerful battery life. If you are looking for a power house machine then don’t expect to be using it much like a laptop but rather as a portable desktop machine.

God Bless,
-Daniel Kolansky