Dell Studio 17: When Gaming Isn't Enough
by Dustin Sklavos on August 26, 2010 12:10 AM ESTBattery Life in a Desktop Replacement
If you aren't expecting much out of the battery of the Dell Studio 17, you're probably right not to. This is a massive 17-inch notebook; in addition to feeding that large screen, the battery also has to power a processor with a 45W TPD and mainstream-class mobile graphics. Dell seems to have been cognizant of this in opting to ship the Studio 17 with a 9-cell battery standard (a 6-cell battery that sits flush with the unit is also available.) Let's see how it fares.
In practice, Dell is able to get far more running time out of this notebook than we expected they would. While it's true that this notebook has the advantage of a 9-cell battery, its relative battery life is nonetheless quite good given the components inside and larger screen. Dell has managed to get a 17" screen, 45W Intel mobile quad-core, and a decent GPU to produce battery life comparable to AMD machines running off of integrated graphics: no mean feat to be sure. Granted, AMD's latest Danube and Nile platforms improve the situation, but Clarksfield processors have never been very battery friendly.
The only question mark is really just how important this kind of useful battery life is on a machine this big. Sure, it's great that it can handle surfing the internet for more than four hours, but the thing weighs nearly eight pounds, and it's mighty wide. The best case I can suggest is that it would be useful for any kind of on-the-go media work, where you need a monitor or just powerful hardware that can run on the battery for a substantial amount of time.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
41 Comments
View All Comments
JarredWalton - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
We list the gaming results mostly for people that *are* interested in those areas. We've decided to settle on testing "midrange" GPUs at Low, Medium, and High settings. We could put all the results on one page, but then it would be a really long page. Anyway, if you go by word count, the article is 3600 words long, and the gaming and graphics pages comprise a total of 800 words over four pages.Dustin Sklavos - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
I did when I first got the Studio 17, but the most recent BIOS update largely alleviated that issue. The thing runs a little toasty, but it's a huge notebook and the extended battery makes it abundantly clear it's not supposed to be used on your lap.I did my research before picking this one up, and haven't run into that BIOS issue or the AC adaptor issue.
synaesthetic - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
Why does this not have a Mobility Radeon 5850? Or at least a 5830? There's more than enough room, if a 5830 can be shoved into an Envy 15...What a waste.
Dustin Sklavos - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
Price, heat, and battery life.The Studio 17 is fairly large, but compared to some gaming notebooks it's actually not as bulky. And I can tell you the cooling system is on the "eh" side...going to a high-end GPU like that would tax it too much.
Also, 5830/50/70 all play hell on the battery, as the G73 results demonstrate.
JarredWalton - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
Now if he made the argument for HD 5650 or *maybe* 5730, that would be reasonable. Those aren't as fast as the 5800 series, but they're faster than old 4650. Of course, Dustin bought this as a bargain at Best Buy, which is probably why he has the older 4650... not that 560v is any different.seapeople - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
Yay, some love for 17 inchers! I'm glad you didn't go down the "Any laptop over 14 inches is a behemoth tank that you need a fork lift to carry around" road. Even if you did claim that battery life doesn't matter on a big laptop.... which is fairly silly. A long battery life on this laptop means the same as any other laptop -- that when you take it with you somewhere, you don't need to get out (or bring) the charger, which is even bigger on something like this.Also, I can fit my 17" Dell in a backpack which is small enough to count as your "personal bag" on an airplane (i.e., fits under the seat). Battery life is somewhat important in airports considering the lack of outlets.
Lingyis - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
well, that's not cool. i just bought a studio 17 a couple days ago based on anandtech. really shouldn't do that too often to maintain anandtech's good reputation.fortunately, my specs are completely different. i5-520, no discrete graphics card, RGB 1080. the truth is that i bought it pretty much 99% for the RGB 1080 screen, which if it's anything like the XPS 16, should be awesome (XPS 16 no longer offers RGB screen as an option). another reason for the 17' is so that i don't need to lug around a numpad with me.
i won't do any gaming (well, nothing graphics intensive anyway) on the machine, pretty much using it either to remotely log on to work machines or run some local calculation jobs (mostly single-threaded) so hopefully battery life would be quite a bit better than what's tested here.
so fingers crossed. i don't think i'll like the keyboard (tried it out at best buy) but hopefully i'll get used to it and i'll end up loving the screen and, as a result, the laptop. i guess worst case i'll just get a keyboard when i'm not on the road.
that's the thing--studio 17's have so many configurations. i probably have buyer's bias at this point, but to go back on your rec based on just one config is just... not worth the humble pie.
ps. XPS 16 only has the "WLED" option these days, which i don't know how it's different from regular LED. any idea how it stacks up to the "RGB LED"?
Dustin Sklavos - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
I'm not sure I understand how I'm reneging on my rec, especially since I'm actually using it myself and kept it. I love mine.How am I reneging?
Lingyis - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
okay i guess you're not. i misread one of the lines.i have a question though: do you have a fan issue? i just got mine yesterday and the fan goes on and off every 10 seconds or so and it's driving me absolutely nuts. i'm not running anything intensive, just browsing the web or something.
Lingyis - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
well okay i contacted dell customer support they said they'll send somebody to replace the fan unit. hopefully the resolves the issue.the guy was really pushy trying to sell me the complete warranty plan. but i'm thinking of replacing the hard drive with a SSD at some point in the future so i don't think it's worth the money.