Latitude D800 Battery Life

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I'm considering buying a D800. Any feedback with respect to runtime on
battery would be appreciated. Also any comments on performance and/or
reliability.

Thanks,
Harvey
 
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Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Harvey Gratt <hgratt@comcast.net> wrote:
> I'm considering buying a D800. Any feedback with respect to runtime on
> battery would be appreciated. Also any comments on performance and/or
> reliability.

> Thanks,
> Harvey

1.6Ghz Pentium M with the 1920x1600 WXUGA 15.1" screen.

Battery life is good. I generally get about three hours to a charge.
Do NOT buy the 1920x1600 screen. The display is terrific but the
eyestrain is terrible.

Reliability is alright. The case has a few squeeky parts after a year
and a half inside a backpack / on campus. The chassis looks like it
is make of metal. It's paint in many places. The AC brick is the only
part I replaced to date (warranty).

Small nitpick: Dell used thermal labels for the underside spec
stickers. The heat generated by the laptop has turned them all
an uneven shade of gray. The service sticker and XP sticker
survived.

BTW, the only other mfr I would consider is IBM.
 
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"Kevin" <bastian@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:d416k0$9vi$1@gondor.sdsu.edu...
> Harvey Gratt <hgratt@comcast.net> wrote:
>> I'm considering buying a D800. Any feedback with respect to runtime on
>> battery would be appreciated. Also any comments on performance and/or
>> reliability.
>
>> Thanks,
>> Harvey
>
> 1.6Ghz Pentium M with the 1920x1600 WXUGA 15.1" screen.
>
> Battery life is good. I generally get about three hours to a charge.
> Do NOT buy the 1920x1600 screen. The display is terrific but the
> eyestrain is terrible.
>
> Reliability is alright. The case has a few squeeky parts after a year
> and a half inside a backpack / on campus. The chassis looks like it
> is make of metal. It's paint in many places. The AC brick is the only
> part I replaced to date (warranty).
>
> Small nitpick: Dell used thermal labels for the underside spec
> stickers. The heat generated by the laptop has turned them all
> an uneven shade of gray. The service sticker and XP sticker
> survived.
>
> BTW, the only other mfr I would consider is IBM.
>

If they eyestrain is horrible, then you have not properly set it up for your
needs. Don't give up on it just because you don't know how to configure XP
 
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Tom Scales <tomtoo@softhome.net> wrote:

> "Kevin" <bastian@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> news:d416k0$9vi$1@gondor.sdsu.edu...
>> Harvey Gratt <hgratt@comcast.net> wrote:
>>> I'm considering buying a D800. Any feedback with respect to runtime on
>>> battery would be appreciated. Also any comments on performance and/or
>>> reliability.
>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Harvey
>>
>> 1.6Ghz Pentium M with the 1920x1600 WXUGA 15.1" screen.
>>
>> Battery life is good. I generally get about three hours to a charge.
>> Do NOT buy the 1920x1600 screen. The display is terrific but the
>> eyestrain is terrible.
>>
>> Reliability is alright. The case has a few squeeky parts after a year
>> and a half inside a backpack / on campus. The chassis looks like it
>> is make of metal. It's paint in many places. The AC brick is the only
>> part I replaced to date (warranty).
>>
>> Small nitpick: Dell used thermal labels for the underside spec
>> stickers. The heat generated by the laptop has turned them all
>> an uneven shade of gray. The service sticker and XP sticker
>> survived.
>>
>> BTW, the only other mfr I would consider is IBM.
>>

> If they eyestrain is horrible, then you have not properly set it up for your
> needs. Don't give up on it just because you don't know how to configure XP

Well, first, you excel at giving random uninformed advice typically
stolen off the web. I hope no one actually listens to you. Because,
I'm 99.999% sure you haven't even seen a D800 at 1920x1600.

As I said, I've used/owned my laptop for about 18 months. The fonts are
way too small to read comfortably. If the fix is to magnify everything
on the screen, what's the point??

150% sized fonts are better. But this does nothing to fix images.
A good number of dialog boxes (Microsoft and third party) are designed
around 100% sized fonts. Using 150% fonts make the dialog boxes draw
incorrectly: wrapping text, overwriting text, and in some cases,
pushing windows buttons off the dialog window. Run your system like
this for a month and report back Skippy.

Dell includes a utility to resize both the fonts and the graphics.
Unfortunately, it dithers the graphics and it does so horrifically.
It looks and feels like Windows 3.1. And the same issues mentioned
above still apply (as this utility depends on Windows to resize
the font).

A few web browsers have zoom features. It doesn't help the overall
system software obviously. If surfing the web is a full-time job,
no problem. This will solve a lot of the issues. But few D800
buyers are looking for a surfing machine.

None of this addresses the issue of alternate operating systems of
course. Windows 2000, Longhorn Beta, FreeBSD, Linux, and Solaris
will all have there issues. That's left as an exercise for you,
dickhead.
 
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"Kevin" <bastian@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:d41bd6$b4p$1@gondor.sdsu.edu...
> Tom Scales <tomtoo@softhome.net> wrote:
>
>> "Kevin" <bastian@nowhere.com> wrote in message
>> news:d416k0$9vi$1@gondor.sdsu.edu...
>>> Harvey Gratt <hgratt@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>> I'm considering buying a D800. Any feedback with respect to runtime on
>>>> battery would be appreciated. Also any comments on performance and/or
>>>> reliability.
>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Harvey
>>>
>>> 1.6Ghz Pentium M with the 1920x1600 WXUGA 15.1" screen.
>>>
>>> Battery life is good. I generally get about three hours to a charge.
>>> Do NOT buy the 1920x1600 screen. The display is terrific but the
>>> eyestrain is terrible.
>>>
>>> Reliability is alright. The case has a few squeeky parts after a year
>>> and a half inside a backpack / on campus. The chassis looks like it
>>> is make of metal. It's paint in many places. The AC brick is the only
>>> part I replaced to date (warranty).
>>>
>>> Small nitpick: Dell used thermal labels for the underside spec
>>> stickers. The heat generated by the laptop has turned them all
>>> an uneven shade of gray. The service sticker and XP sticker
>>> survived.
>>>
>>> BTW, the only other mfr I would consider is IBM.
>>>
>
>> If they eyestrain is horrible, then you have not properly set it up for
>> your
>> needs. Don't give up on it just because you don't know how to configure
>> XP
>
> Well, first, you excel at giving random uninformed advice typically
> stolen off the web. I hope no one actually listens to you. Because,
> I'm 99.999% sure you haven't even seen a D800 at 1920x1600.
>
> As I said, I've used/owned my laptop for about 18 months. The fonts are
> way too small to read comfortably. If the fix is to magnify everything
> on the screen, what's the point??
>
> 150% sized fonts are better. But this does nothing to fix images.
> A good number of dialog boxes (Microsoft and third party) are designed
> around 100% sized fonts. Using 150% fonts make the dialog boxes draw
> incorrectly: wrapping text, overwriting text, and in some cases,
> pushing windows buttons off the dialog window. Run your system like
> this for a month and report back Skippy.
>
> Dell includes a utility to resize both the fonts and the graphics.
> Unfortunately, it dithers the graphics and it does so horrifically.
> It looks and feels like Windows 3.1. And the same issues mentioned
> above still apply (as this utility depends on Windows to resize
> the font).
>
> A few web browsers have zoom features. It doesn't help the overall
> system software obviously. If surfing the web is a full-time job,
> no problem. This will solve a lot of the issues. But few D800
> buyers are looking for a surfing machine.
>
> None of this addresses the issue of alternate operating systems of
> course. Windows 2000, Longhorn Beta, FreeBSD, Linux, and Solaris
> will all have there issues. That's left as an exercise for you,
> dickhead.
>


Ah, yes, name calling makes me understand well. Perhaps I was a bit harsh,
but your response was over the top.

But what can I expect from someone that uses language like that
 
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Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Hi!

> I'm considering buying a D800. Any feedback with respect to runtime on
> battery would be appreciated. Also any comments on performance and/or
> reliability.

Wonderful machine! It performs excellently and battery life just about blew
me away.

The only quirk I've noticed to date is that the audio can become broken up
while using the onboard IR. There is also a minor irritation whenever I use
the CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive. This is rare, but when I put that in, the sound
mixer gets reset to default levels. Maybe this is because I'm using Windows
2000 and not XP though. Mine spends the majority of its time with the
internal floppy. I seldom if ever use the CD/DVD drive...so this is not a
big problem.

That said, performance is wonderful. The machine just feels *very* fast. It
seems faster than my Dimension 8300 for most tasks. Battery life with
"regular use" like web browsing or word processing is a good solid 4 hours
and sometimes a little more. Obviously if you watch a DVD or play games this
will be shortened.

I purchased mine with the basic (1280x800?) display panel, despite some
reviews stating that this was a bad idea. I think the basic display panel is
just fine and very readable. Plus if some disaster happens, I won't have to
worry about an expensive uplevel display panel.

William
 
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Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

William R. Walsh wrote:
> Hi!
>
>
>>I'm considering buying a D800. Any feedback with respect to runtime on
>>battery would be appreciated. Also any comments on performance and/or
>>reliability.
>
>
> Wonderful machine! It performs excellently and battery life just about blew
> me away.
>
> The only quirk I've noticed to date is that the audio can become broken up
> while using the onboard IR. There is also a minor irritation whenever I use
> the CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive. This is rare, but when I put that in, the sound
> mixer gets reset to default levels. Maybe this is because I'm using Windows
> 2000 and not XP though. Mine spends the majority of its time with the
> internal floppy. I seldom if ever use the CD/DVD drive...so this is not a
> big problem.
>
> That said, performance is wonderful. The machine just feels *very* fast. It
> seems faster than my Dimension 8300 for most tasks. Battery life with
> "regular use" like web browsing or word processing is a good solid 4 hours
> and sometimes a little more. Obviously if you watch a DVD or play games this
> will be shortened.
>
> I purchased mine with the basic (1280x800?) display panel, despite some
> reviews stating that this was a bad idea. I think the basic display panel is
> just fine and very readable. Plus if some disaster happens, I won't have to
> worry about an expensive uplevel display panel.
>
> William
>
>
Thanks for the information. What speed processor did you get? Right now
it seems that the higher cpu speeds are tied to the higher display
resolutions. Also, how long have you had the machine? FWIW, I might have
considered the new D810, but I also wanted a parallel port which only
the D800 has.

Thanks,
Harvey