Well, I just got and ran my M5550 with the new 9 Cell battery offering from Alienware. There is much improved battery life. I watched a movie all the way through, without any stopping. The movie was only about 1hr 45mins long, but that is about average. I watched "I, Robot" till the credits were over and still had 26 minutes of battery life left according to NBHC. I would say that is a serious improvement. NBHC said, when I booted up the computer, that the battery had almost 3 hours. Now, my setup is in my sig, and I had the display on one tick above the lowest brightness setting, and had the wireless turned off. I think if I was just surfing the net and not playing games, it would probably last around 2-2.5 hours. I will update when I do more testing, but so far the battery is great.
Here are the pics that were requested:
OK, so, gaming on the 9 cell battery:
I played two games on and off: FEAR and Need for speed most wanted.
I had to fine tune the settings down, because when in battery mode performance is slow in the higher settings. So, with settings turned down to medium on FEAR, I still got choppy frames, but playable. Some of you may want to put the settings on low. In NFS: Most Wanted, I had the settings, I would say on about a medium. NFS ran beautifully, even on the lower settings, not choppy at all, even during police chases. Total gaming time, I would put at about 1.5-2 hours, depending on game settings and what not. I had the wireless on during the entire time, just to see. I'm sure if I had turned off the wireless, it may have been a little longer. All in all, I think the 9 cell is great. If the only thing I was doing was surfing the net and some word processing, I could see 2.5 hours on this battery I think. Well, that's it. Any questions, feel free to ask. I feel that the $80 for the 9 cell is worth it. For those who complain about the battery life being horrible, think on this:
The M5550 is an excellent gaming laptop and has alot of power in a small package. All that power is going to eat up battery life. You can only turn settings down so far before they become annoyingly low. If you are looking for a laptop that is not so power hungry, than DON'T get the M5550. However, if you are looking for the portability of a laptop, and the power of a desktop, than this is a perfect blend of both.
Here are the pics that were requested:
OK, so, gaming on the 9 cell battery:
I played two games on and off: FEAR and Need for speed most wanted.
I had to fine tune the settings down, because when in battery mode performance is slow in the higher settings. So, with settings turned down to medium on FEAR, I still got choppy frames, but playable. Some of you may want to put the settings on low. In NFS: Most Wanted, I had the settings, I would say on about a medium. NFS ran beautifully, even on the lower settings, not choppy at all, even during police chases. Total gaming time, I would put at about 1.5-2 hours, depending on game settings and what not. I had the wireless on during the entire time, just to see. I'm sure if I had turned off the wireless, it may have been a little longer. All in all, I think the 9 cell is great. If the only thing I was doing was surfing the net and some word processing, I could see 2.5 hours on this battery I think. Well, that's it. Any questions, feel free to ask. I feel that the $80 for the 9 cell is worth it. For those who complain about the battery life being horrible, think on this:
The M5550 is an excellent gaming laptop and has alot of power in a small package. All that power is going to eat up battery life. You can only turn settings down so far before they become annoyingly low. If you are looking for a laptop that is not so power hungry, than DON'T get the M5550. However, if you are looking for the portability of a laptop, and the power of a desktop, than this is a perfect blend of both.
