APC’s Universal Notebook Battery Booster

Features
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Published

Test System, Battery Runtime

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Platform
Notebook Dell Latitude D630, Mobile Intel GM965 Express Chipset
CPU Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 (45 nm; 2600 MHz, 6 MB L2 Cache)
RAM Corsair ValueRAM, 2x 2048 MB DDR2-667 SDRAM 5-5-5-15
DVD ROM 8x DVD+/-RW
Wireless Intel 4965 WLAN (802.11a/g/n) mini Card
Screen 14.1 inch Wide Screen WXGA+ LCD (1400x900)
Graphic Card Intel Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
Sound Card Integrated
Power Supplies 9-cell/85 Wh Primary Battery
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System Software and Drivers
OS Windows Vista Ultimate 6.0 Build 6000 SP1
DirectX Version 10
Platform Drivers Intel Version 8.2.0.1014
Graphics Drivers igdumd32.dll (7.14.00.10.1253)
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Benchmarks and Settings
VLC Version 0.8.6h, Playing VOB file in continuous loop
BatteryMon v 2.1

Battery
Run Time Results

We played the vob file from the notebook’s hard drive in a continuous loop to stress both batteries until they were empty. We connected the Universal Notebook Battery to the Latitude D630 notebook and launched BatteryMon 2.1 as well as the video playback. After three hours and 38 minutes, BatteryMon reported that power supply switched to battery mode, which means that the APC battery was now empty. We still had a remaining run time of four hours and 35 minutes. In the end, the Dell notebook played the video file for eight hours and 13 minutes, which gave us an 80% battery run time increase on top of the notebook’s 9-cell battery.

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APC Universal Notebook Battery 3h 38min
Dell 85Wh 4h 35min
Total 8h 13min

We also did some battery run time testing without any active workload, which resulted in approximately 11 hours of battery run time using both batteries. Run time can probably be even longer if you force yourself to work with very low display brightness. The second test showed the same 80% increase in run time, mainly because this is effectively the battery capacity difference between the 85 Wh Dell battery and the 70 Wh APC Universal Notebook Battery (82% gross difference).

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If you maximize the notebook power saving features and limit display brightness to a reasonable level—which is certainly possible on a plane—you will be able to hit more than nine hours of battery run time when working with desktop applications.

Check prices for APC's Universal Notebook Battery 70