Dell XPS L501x: An Excellent Mainstream Notebook
by Jarred Walton on November 10, 2010 12:01 AM ESTDell XPS L501x Battery Life: Good but the 9-Cell Would Be Better
The default battery in the L501x is a 6-cell 56Wh unit, which is more than the paltry 48Wh 6-cell batteries in many laptops but not quite at the 63Wh level seen in others. The combination of Optimus Technology and a reasonable battery means we should see good battery life, but nothing record setting. That's pretty much what we get, with a few oddities.
The L501x comes out ahead of many of the 48Wh laptops in the idle, despite having a larger 15.6" LCD, so the slightly higher capacity battery balances things out. Internet battery life is a different story, dropping the L501x down below the N82Jv but still slightly ahead of the ID49C. As bad as that result may look in the chart, it's also still 16% higher than the Toshiba A660D with a 16.7% larger battery, so in that particular test the AMD P920 + HD 4250 matches the i5-460M + GT 420M on a relative basis. In contrast to the Internet result, the x264 playback puts the XPS back ahead of many of the 48Wh batteries.
We had hoped for something a bit more impressive here, but the results aren't bad. It could be that the higher LCD resolution affects some tests negatively (i.e. in the Internet test, you would see more of the test web pages and thus Flash ads further down the page might increase CPU usage). [Update: I retested Internet battery life at 1366x768 and the result didn't change; for some reason the L501x does far worse in that test relative to the other laptops.] HWmonitor also shows the battery at 4% wear despite over 10 cycles, so you might get slightly improved results with a different battery. Ultimately, though, the simple solution to battery life concerns is to spend an extra $40 and get the 9-cell 92Wh battery if you want to run all (or at least most of the) day untethered. There's a compromise in weight with the 9-cell battery, though, and it juts out about an inch below the laptop. I prefer the form factor of the 6-cell battery, but it's always nice to have a choice.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
95 Comments
View All Comments
cknobman - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link
I agree completely.This notebook is bfugly, big and fat!!!!!!
JohnMD1022 - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link
Seagate drive?I'll pass.
Just had another bad one pass thru the shop.
vant - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link
Are you kidding me? This is quite possibly one of the ugliest laptops I've seen in a while. I seriously feel like no one at Dell's design team is younger than 50. Just look at the first picture posted and tell me thats not more hideous than a puddle of urine.At least the previous XPS had leather and modern styling. This seriously looks like 'hey we need some high quality materials and Apple like design cues!' but then they just f*ed up everything in the process of getting it to market.
Seriously, with a design like that you can stuff two quad core i7s (desktop of course), 16GB of RAM, a GTX480, 200+ ppi display, a $1k price tag and NO ONE WOULD BUY IT.
Dell, HP, Toshiba, ASUS, etc.: They all need a wake up call and realize that their products are being used in the public at coffee shops, not in private homes. We have to use these products around people who look at us. We need products that look modern and work well with our mobile lifestyles. That means we need LIGHTWEIGHT, SMALL FORM FACTOR (thin would be nice), and LARGE AMOUNTS OF BATTERY LIFE.
The average user doesn't need a Core i7 on their laptops, the average user needs 12 hours of battery life instead. We don't need 420Ms, we need laptops that will actually fit in our backpacks (without making us look like we are carrying an animal).
How companies are still losing market share while putting trash products like these to market and surviving is baffling. They will continue to bleed until death or change. Their choice.
I'd like to take this time to also point out that copying the competition gets you nowhere. Innovating is where the money is.
barnett25 - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link
Are you sure you are talking about the "average user" and not just yourself?Cause I have no need for a thin and light laptop. I've got a smartphone for that. If your spending all your time at starbucks showing off you should get a Mac.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they should not make thin and lights, just that not every computer has to be one.
nafhan - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link
Uhm, I'd say your wrong, there are some people who need 12 hours of battery life, but it's not the "average" user. The average user is rarely going to take their laptop out of the house/dorm, and when they do, it's going to be to a coffee shop or something. I also think there's still a few people out there who aren't going to pay an extra $800 to make sure their PC is pretty.strikeback03 - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link
Umm, yeah, I would say you fit the target market for a Mac exactly. But that is not the "average user". I have had one laptop or another for 11 years, and have used one in a coffee shop maybe 5 times (when meeting with clients). And I certainly have never needed 12 hours of battery life, I've never spent 12 hours straight at any computer portable or not. Not to say I am an "average user" either, but I'm not delusional enough to think everyone needs what I would like. And I don't derive feelings of self-worth from what my laptop looks like.B3an - Friday, November 12, 2010 - link
Who the fuck takes there laptop to a coffee shop to pose? Oh yeah... mactards.For the rest of us mature people with more than single digit braincell counts, we want laptops like this that are actually useful.
This isn't even meant to aimed at these kind of sheeple. Theres laptops made specificity to be very portable, thin, lightweight, with low power usage/long batter life, and this CLEARLY is not intended as one. Idiot.
PlasmaBomb - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link
Any chance of you asking for one and doing a review of it?Thanks :)
tipoo - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link
Why are Macbook Pro battery life results never put in with windows laptop reviews? I understand the differences in benchmarking performance between the two, but in terms of battery life it should be a straightforward comparison, no?kake - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link
If you look at the charts on the battery performance page, you'll find the Apple MBP 13 near the top of the heap in every scenario.