Comments on: My new laptop – with a really nice battery option

By: Alyssa

Alyssa — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:05:24 +0000

I have a problem and I am hoping someone could help. I have a Dell Latitude D620, originally came with XP, upgraded to 7. My ex somehow disable my battery charging option so that when it is plugged in the battery does not charge, and as you can guess the battery eventually got so low from unplugging it that it is now dead. How can I turn it back on? I know it isn’t the battery because I just bought a brand new one from Dell. Any help would be great. Thanks 🙂

By: Alex-Hong Kong

Alex-Hong Kong — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 10:25:32 +0000

I have a Dell Vostro v130 and it came with the same option. I think that is pretty nice it will definitely helps extends the lifetime of the battery. I use my laptop mostly at office and at home, when it is plugged constantly, so I don’t really need the battery to be kept recharging all the time.
Alex

By: Matt Taylor

Matt Taylor — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 01:42:15 +0000

Hey Rob Hope you and the family are all well. Work crossed my path with a very switched on guy some years ago and I keep an eye on his blog. He just wrote this article that I'm sure will interest you in terms of SSDs; http://planetwilson.blogspot.com/2010/03/ssd-goodness-and-sharepoint-virtual.html

By: danh

danh — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 13:05:47 +0000

Sounds like a nice machine.
I have a 160Gb Intel X25-M in my XPS M1330 and it is very good, has certainly extended the life of my laptop.
I am running Win 7 64 bit with 4 Gb Ram.
An App like Excel 2010 64 loads in less than a second.
My VMWare image of a Server 2008 boots not much slower than my i7 based server at home…

By: Ewen

Ewen — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 10:54:33 +0000

http://www.anandtech.com/ have good articles on SSDs. fyi- it was down at the time of writing.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 22:38:01 +0000

I also heard that the Lenovos do not use the battery if the laptop is plugged in. It’s something called ThinkVantage. I don’t own one but ever since I heard about it, I have been looking for one. But they are pricey which is why I’m still looking.

By: TiborKaraszi

TiborKaraszi — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 19:20:55 +0000

I have an XPS-16, had it for some 6 months now. Love it! I have older proc specs, though. I’v considered goind SSD, but I still need so many VHDs for training and I really dislike external drives. Might go there in the end, though. I wish the manufactirers would make it standard to have a smaller form factor SSD drive for "system" stuff and the traditional drive for "other" stuff. Let us know if/when you start investigate the SSD area.

By: Rob Farley

Rob Farley — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 18:03:20 +0000

Nice. I considered a Lenovo – I’ve heard a lot of good things about them – but it was also a lot more expensive than the Dell.

By: Adam Machanic

Adam Machanic — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:52:31 +0000

Lenovo laptops have a feature where the battery charge doesn’t kick in until the battery has reached a certain level (user specified). I have mine set to 95%. This keeps the thing from discharging a bit as it sits there, then jumping into a charge, then discharging, etc. Same end-effect of the feature on your Dell, prolonging the battery’s life, but it’s a bit more automatic.