1

So I'm choosing a new laptop and I've tuned it down to three laptops which are almost the same -- except for the battery. Two laptops (the Ideapad 330, and a version of the Ideapad 330s -- are just the same. They both have a 2-cel Li-ion battery at 30 Wh, 4000 mAh internal.

The other, third laptop I'm looking at is the HP 14 bs179tx, which features almost the same specs, but with a 4-cell, 41 Wh Li-ion battery. Apart from reading up on reviews of both these laptops for real-life battery backup information (which I've done and found that the Ideapad gives barely 3 hours of mixed usage on a single charge), how else should one go about comparing battery performance?

  1. How does it differ with the number of cells (2 vs 3 vs 4)?
  2. How does it differ with the Wh advertised?
  3. For laptops that have the same specs (especially if they're just variants of one another), does a smaller laptop = better battery backup? If so, how much does it differ?
Improve this question
1
  • @JamesP -- I understand, and that's why I spent time reading reviews of the models. I just want to know (at least for educational purposes) the difference between having a battery with more cells and more Wh on them, and if screen size will affect battery performance, all other things being equal.
    – WorldGov
    Commented Aug 1, 2018 at 12:29

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

In general, the more cells you have the better.

The more cells a battery has, the longer each charge will last. And longer charges mean that fewer charge/discharge cycles will be required. Fewer charge/discharge cycles result in a longer overall battery life.

Bottom line: A laptop battery with more cells will let you use your laptop longer before having to recharge the battery. And just as important, the battery itself will last longer. In my opinion, the extra expense is well worth buying a laptop battery with the most cells possible.

As regarding Wh, this means watt-hours and is a measure of the battery power. Watt-hour rating is a measurement of how much energy (in watts) the battery has to expend before needing to recharge. In engineering terms, Wh = Voltage * Amps * hours.

Dividing the Wh number by the amount of current the laptop really draws will give the number of hours that it can work on battery. For example, with a 41 Wh battery if the laptop draws about 10 watts, then the battery will last 4.1 hours.

The higher the WH is with the exact same hardware and the exact same usage pasterns, the longer you can stay powered between charges.

Improve this answer
0

Stream a very long youtube video on both devices at same time with the same amount of battery left in both phones and same brightness and background apps. And after that video compare the reduced battery percentage.

Improve this answer
2
  • The OP says that they’re trying to decide which one to buy — so, unless the store lets them ‘‘test drive’’ all three models, they won’t be able to do testing like this.
    – Scott - Слава Україні
    Commented Aug 5, 2018 at 4:03
  • So then,as Harry said the more cells the laptop has better the performance will be.
    – Sidramesh
    Commented Aug 6, 2018 at 5:36

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .