Laptop recommendation: Battery life?

Support & Help Requests Hardware
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#1

Hi all - I’m in the market for a new laptop.

I’m looking at the System76 Oryx Pro but after talking to their support, it seems as though the battery life is 2-4 hours. This seems low? I’m assuming this is due to the nvidia graphics card drivers, but if I switch to the intel drivers through optimus, it seems as though I should be getting more. But how much?

My current laptop is a 5-year old System76 Lemur and I’ve been very happy with it - I just need something more powerful and with better battery life.

Alternatively, the Dell XPS 15 seems interesting - the specs seem similar enough to the System76 one, but I’m wondering about battery life as well. Any reviews I’ve seen for this are using Windows, whereas I’ll only have Ubuntu MATE running on it.

Does anyone have experience with either of these laptops? I’m also open to suggestions for other high-end laptops for the US market.

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#2

I’m a big fan of the Dell XPS 13 and 15 (and the Precision 5xxx series that shares the XPS 15’s body). They seem to be a good compromise between thinness and features and durability and, for a major vendor, Dell seems to care about Linux, such as with the new firmware update service.

I haven’t had a chance to install Linux on an XPS 15, however, so I can’t comment on battery life. :neutral_face:

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#3

System76 laptops are great in terms of upgradability, because of their Clevo roots. They are pretty bad with battery life, imo. The lemur lasts 5hrs, and I think laptops should support around 8hrs.

#4

Yeah I have an almost 5-year old lemu4. With a fresh battery it can last me around 3-4 hours. I’m on my second battery now, though, and I can barely squeeze 1.5 hours out of it most days… Other than that, it’s an excellent machine and still runs smoothly.

These days I find myself running around a lot between meetings and dev time. Lugging around the power brick is super awkward, especially when all my peers are using shiny Macs with 10000 hours of battery life.

#5

Ok, so it seems that the System76 battery life is not just an OS/config thing: it has a 60Wh battery, whereas the XPS uses a 97Wh one…

I love System76 and have only had good experiences with their desktops/laptops since like 2011, but my needs are different now and I think I will have to go with Dell :confused:

Good to know Dell is on board with supporting Linux :slight_smile: I haven’t had a Dell since the 90s

Thanks!!

#6

Hallo vkareh

Laptop battery life under Linux is often reported as lower than when the he same hardware is running windoze.

I would opt for a model with a removable battery and take one or more spares depending upon my needs.

Having said that, I’ll only use a laptop if I can’t have access to a desktop. :fuelpump:

#7

The oryx pro is not designed for really long battery life. Most use cases would suggest the gtx1070 or gtx1080 card will suck down the battery and they do. We have an oryx pro and my tests suggested 1-2 hrs doing computational chemistry modelling. I would suggest a Galago Pro. I have one and can get 3-4 hrs with low power settings in place doing real work. Looks like a Mac air too so no one will know your a rebel.

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