battery life

[ppb1987]

Hi guys,

does anyone have any idea what the approximate battery life should be for my laptop- a vgn-fs215z. It seems to be fairly poor- even compared to some of my friends' poorer quality laptops.

Cheers.

Paul

[Thalamus.]

Hi Paul,

According to the FS215Z specs you should expect Up to 02:06 / VAIO Optimized (Brightness Level 5), however it's more likely to be closer to an hour..

Sony use these settings when testing the battery lenght..

Full recovery with hard disk defragmented.
No access to optical drive (Playing CD, Playing DVD).
No access to Memory Stick.
No external devices connected (Mouse, Keyboard, FDD, Printer).
No communication devices active (Modem, Ethernet).
Wireless LAN (if applicable) turned off.
Bluetooth (if applicable) turned off.
For security reasons, we advise to NOT disable your Anti-Virus Software, but it might affect the result.
Brightness level set to 5.
VAIO Power Management set to maximum battery life (Vaio optimised).
Working only with office-type applications (not playing games, 3d rendering, video editing etc).

[c_fraser_hopewell]

I've never managed to get much more than an hour out of my FS215S - that's with the screen turned down to 2 and the wireless turned off (one of the reasons why it's getting sold pretty soon).

I'm afraid the maximum battery life stats on the Sony website are pretty misleading in reality.

Contrast this to my MacBook Pro 2.16Ghz - it gets, on average, 3.5 hours with the screen set to half power (more than bright enough) and heavy wireless use. If I turn down the screen and turn off the wireless, I can manage over 4 hours (still a bit off Apple's claim of 5 hours!).

Basically, the FS series battery life sucks!!!