AVADirect's Clevo W860CU: Mobility 5870 vs. GTX 285M

Battery Life, aka Mobile UPS

Credit where credit is due, Clevo has a very good idea of how the W860CU is intended to be used. What could charitably be called a “battery” is a paltry three-cell, 42.18Wh affair. Anyone expecting to enjoy a notebook like this on a long plane ride is barking up the wrong tree; the battery included is essentially a glorified UPS system. AVADirect's website doesn't even quote an expected battery running time, and that's understandable. We tested the battery with the computer's power profile set to “Power Saver” in Windows 7 and the screen brightness measured as close to 100 nits as we could get it.

And there you have it. With the GeForce GTX 285M you can push battery life to a touch over an hour, assuming you do next to nothing with the notebook. On the flipside, however, these notebooks are configured with top-of-the-line components, the fastest single-chip mobile graphics solutions available, and require cooling systems that add considerable weight. Portability isn't a major concern here and time off the mains shouldn't be a priority for someone looking for a notebook with this much power.

What is troubling is that the Mobility Radeon HD 5870 doesn't seem to even clock down on the battery. There's no reason for this, especially given the excellent power characteristics of its Juniper-based desktop counterparts. The GTX 285M clocks itself quite low, and the battery life results bear this out. Unfortunately, the HD 5870-based notebook posts the worst battery life results we've ever measured. Looking at the ASUS G73Jh, we have to assume this is more of a bug with this particular configuration. The ASUS has 8GB RAM and dual hard drives and still manages significantly better relative battery life (and the larger battery means it lasts much longer as well).