Today’s blog post is all about the battery life and versatility of the Asus N80Vc – just how good is it as a portable business laptop?
I’ll look into how the battery life compares with the stated figures on the official Asus site, and how this also compares with other business laptops in the market.
I will also be looking at the versatility of the N80Vc – just how business-orientated is it?
Let’s get started on the topic of the day – battery life.
The Asus N80Vc has four main power settings, both for when it is plugged into the mains and for when it is using its 4800mAh Li-ion battery.
The settings available to choose from are Entertainment, Quiet Office, High Performance and Battery Saving. With a fully charged battery at 100%, the on-board Power4Gear software shows the following estimate figures for battery life:
Entertainment – 2hrs 0 min
High Performance – 2hrs 0min
Quiet Office – 1hr 58min
Battery Saving – 2hrs 15min
Of course, these ‘presets’ are customisable using the software Asus includes with the laptop. I find this to be a fantastic addition to the laptop – being able to customise screen brightness, min/max processor speed and whether the desktop icons and sidebar are hidden to conserve battery power is a brilliant innovation.
This definitely appeals to the business user in my opinion. Depending on how long you will be wanting to use the laptop for, you can decide just how much you want the laptop to work, and how much performance you want out of it in the time you are using it. Not only does this feature make it so that you can make the battery last longer, it also means you can use it as a home or entertainment laptop too.
As mentioned in my last blog post, the inclusion of Dolby sound means it can be used as an entertainment laptop (with the Windows Vista installation also incorporating Media Centre), meaning when I got bored of working during my train journey I watched a DVD with the screen at full brightness and graphics processing at maximum for the best quality possible!
Yes, it’s customisable – but how long does the battery actually last?
Here are my results:
High Performance, Wi-Fi on – 2hrs 10min
High Performance, Wi-Fi off – 2hrs 23min
Battery Saving, Wi-Fi on – 2hrs 45min
Battery Saving, Wi-Fi off – 3hrs 07min
I think the battery life of the N80Vc fares pretty well – the battery would last a plane trip to Europe or a 3hr hour train journey without much difficulty! The closest rival to the N80Vc is the HP EliteBook 6930p, and this has a stated battery life of 3hrs so the Asus certainly matches it, and is nearly £200 cheaper than the HP!
The battery doesn’t get too hot either, so I could put it back in my backpack after two hours’ use and not need to worry about it melting my cheese sandwiches which were in the next pocket!
In my next blog post I’ll let you know how quick the N80 loads programs compared to my older Pentium D computer, and my old single core laptop!
