Dell XPS 15 L502x: Now with Sandy Bridge
by Jarred Walton on April 20, 2011 1:10 AM ESTBattery Life: Better than the L501x
As mentioned earlier, Dell shipped us a 90Wh (the website states 92Wh, but our battery rates itself at 90Wh) battery for this review. However, we still have one of their 56Wh batteries from the previous XPS models available, so we tested both configurations. With the move from dual-core Arrandale to quad-core Sandy Bridge, plus a faster GT 540M GPU and HD 3000 IGP, we weren’t sure what would happen to battery life. It turns out that even sticking with the 6-cell battery, the L502x surpasses the L501x in all three of our battery life metrics. That’s good, because the large bump on the bottom of the laptop that the 9-cell upgrade brings into play is a real drawback. Here are the results.
We’ve noted in the past that Sandy Bridge really improved H.264 playback power/battery requirements, and that shows up in our charts again. Compared to the L502x with a 90Wh battery, the smaller ASUS U41JF and its 83Wh battery still comes out ahead in our Idle and Internet results (though keep in mind that the U41JF has to throttle the Core i3 clocks way back to get those results). In the H.264 test, however, the 90Wh Dell comes out with more than a one-hour lead over the next closest competitor. Even looking in Bench, the only laptops we’ve tested that offer better relative battery life for H.264 decoding use either Atom, Brazos, or CULV processors—and the dual-core SNB chip also does better than the quad-core SNB chips. Those are all far slower architectures, so the fact that SNB is even in the discussion is a feather in Intel's cap.
Battery life in general isn’t class leading for the XPS 15, but it’s good enough to satisfy most mobile users. With the standard 6-cell/56Wh battery, you can get 3.5 hours of video viewing, up to 4.5 hours of web surfing (more if you’re on simple web sites), and nearly six hours of idle battery life. Buy the larger battery and you’re looking at 8.5 hours idle, over 7 hours of Internet surfing, and nearly six hours of video playback. The relative performance of the two batteries also scales almost perfectly with cell count and capacity—the 9-cell lasts 52 to 63% longer than the 6-cell.
Rounding things out, we also tested a few other items, again with both batteries. In simulated gaming (looping 3DMark06/03), the L502x manages just 59 to 64 minutes on the 6-cell battery and 86 to 96 minutes with the 9-cell battery. Lower loads are clearly where hybrid laptops excel, so the combination of an active GPU and quad-core SNB is the exact opposite of a low load. Note also that unlike the GTX 460M, the GT 540M can run at full speed even on battery power (hence the low battery life). Setting the LCD to 100% brightness (instead of 40%, which corresponds with 100nits), idle battery life drops a rather large 27%, or in other words the LCD uses an extra ~3.9W for a 150nit increase in backlight intensity. That’s a lot more than we’ve seen with other laptop LCDs, but the 1080p panel is higher quality and gets brighter than much of the competition so we’re willing to cut it some slack.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
76 Comments
View All Comments
cookiezulu - Sunday, April 24, 2011 - link
Not satisfied with just replacing the primary HDD with a Vertex 3 I also want to replace the optical drive with a HDD caddy with a 1TB WD 2.5 Scorpio Blue (WD10TPVT) or a 1TB Samsung Spinpoint MT2 (HM100UI).So I've got a couple of questions for anybody who knows:
1. does the MB/Bios support a 1TB drive in the secondary SATA?
2. if anybody has done in the L501x model, are there any issues with heat?
3. does this void the warranty? (I realise that Dell are not going to support the 3rd party caddy, but does it void the warranty repacing the ODD with a HDD - I don't quite know why Dell don't make one themselves)
Thanks again for your help,
Cookie
JarredWalton - Monday, April 25, 2011 - link
1) It should support any SATA device in the secondary port, but you'll need to find an appropriate caddy (or jury-rig something).2) Most 2.5" HDDs don't generate all that much heat, though 1TB might be a bit more than others. Would be interesting to put the SSD in the ODD bay and use a standard HDD in the main location, as SSDs generate very little heat.
3) Shouldn't matter, as long as you keep the ODD around. There's nothing to indicate you've done something non-standard unless you actually have to mod the main chassis.
cookiezulu - Monday, April 25, 2011 - link
I'm planning on using the Newmodeus caddy (http://bit.ly/frNqo3). Other people seem to have found it alright for the L502.The reviews for hard drive that I was thinking of for the caddy (a WD Scorpio Blue WD10TPVT) report that the drive stays cool under load. Also the caddy is made of metal so that should help with heat.
I did consider the SSD for the caddy but the problem is that if I want to use a 1TB drive (12.5mm in height) I can only put it in the caddy.
Yes, I'm keeping the bluray drive and using it in an external USB enclosure. I've got a 1-5 days in home 3 years extended warranty so I should have time to pop the unit back in if the laptop needs to be taken away.
aneuwahl - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 - link
Hello,does anyone have any news on this?
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop...
The issue seems to be widely and quickly spreading both on 15" and 17" XPS models.
And Dell seems not to be finding any solution at the moment.
mahapatra - Thursday, October 20, 2011 - link
Does anyone know when Dell will upgrade the gfx card gt540m in xps 15? Would it better to wait for 4-6 months?Waynef - Monday, January 16, 2012 - link
Hi,I purchased an XPS l502x Direct Base on 27th May and was delivered in the second week of June 2011
Towards the end of the 4th Month ie Oct, I had few incidents of overheating (get pop ups informing the temp is 99.0 deg in core 1 / 2), in the 5th month I had severe overheating issues (get pop ups informing the temp is 99.0 deg in core 1,2,3 & 4), for which I kept informing Dell about the same and they got the heat sink replaced this was in the first week of dec even to date i get occasional overheating issues.. The day they replaced the heat sink my daughter board went kaput and that took a week to get the same replaced.
In the first 4 months of usage I had a battery life of 7 hrs +, Post which it is now about 3 hours.
Please do let me know if this is normal?
1. Overheating issue.
2. Battery life.
I use the same in Power Savings Mode with screen brightness on the 1st bar. (min)
I rarely use the bluetooth and wifi have not used it till now.
My tech specs are:
Second gen i7-2630QM processor 2.0 GHz with turbo boost to 2.90 GHz
WLED display with Truelife
8GB Dual Channel 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM
750GB 7200 rpm Hard Drive
9 CELL Battery
2 GB NVIDA GeForce GT 540M Graphic Card
Backlight Keyboard
Thanks in advance for the replies and assistance.