Samsung NC10 battery life: 8 hours? I don’t think so.
Just in case you follow DigiTimes, I wanted to quickly address a claim they have on the new Samsung NC10’s battery life. I’m sure the information they were provided was either from marketing materials or someone in the Samsung PR department, but I’m not buying it. The claim I mean… the netbook looks tempting. 
The $499 device comes with a 6-cell battery that offers the exact same power capacity as the battery in my MSI Wind. Both batteries are rated at 5200 mAh. Using XP on my Wind, I see around 5 hours of standard use and I saw slightly less when using OS X. I haven’t yet done a test on the Wind with Vista, but it’s on my to-do list and I have noticed that it doesn’t run as long.DigiTimes reports that the NC10 will “provide up to eight hours of use on a full charge.” Eight hours using a nearly identical battery and chipset as the Wind, which sees five? I’m thinking not by a long shot and would hate to see perspective buyers think they’ll get eight-hours of battery life. Even with optimizations specific to the Samsung NC10, you’d be hard pressed to see six hours. While that would be good, it’s a far cry from eight. I’m sure we’ll hear about the actual run-time via reviews in the very near future. If it does get eight, or even six for that matter, I’d consider selling my MSI Wind and replacing it with a Samsung NC10.
Maybe they forgot to turn on the NC10 and added the 3 hours it was in standby
Any word on whether this thing can run Mac OS X as well as the Wind does?
Drywall, without getting a unit in house, there’s no way to know. Since the majority of the components are the same, it should run well. The challenges (as always) will be device-specific drivers for OS X, i.e.: WiFi, webcam, audio, etc…
Hold on, they could be right.
The Wind uses cheap batteries and an average mobo design and choice of peripherals. Its fairly poor as designs go.
Take the ASUS 901 though. Its a top-notch design and can reach 6-7hrs on cheap 6-cell batteries.
The reprt mentions a 5200mah 6-cell (58Wh) which is a good quality battery so its easilty possible that the Samsung, who are known for some of the best UMPC mobo designs and could run an average 7.25W drain.
If Samsung really have done some good design work, we could be looking at an interesting long-battery life Netbook here. My only problem is that I don’t really see them puuting HQ batteries in. Why should they on such a cheap device?
Steve
Kevin, I bet that “up to 8 hours” was calculated with the system in its lowest power setting. Samsung has implemented an processor underclocking feature for when you need to stretch the life out.
That said, these manufacturers ratings are always higher than real world use.
Steve, I truly hope they are right and I’m wrong in this case. Again, if it sees 6+ hours in a real-world usage test, I’ll seriously consider replacing my Wind with an NC10.
Why not consider Asus S101? more portable and slim case, battery last for 5hrs. Price seems quite reasonable with such pretty furnishing. I am thinking Asus S101 / MSI Wind U100 / and coming Samsung NC10……headache!!!!
Kevin.
It would definitely be good if it was a 6+ hours device with 6-cells.
8hrs is probably the theoretical limit (Jeita test) so take 30% from that for real life (wifi on, 50% backlight, web browsing) and you get to something just under 6hrs.
Steve.
re: Take the ASUS 901 though. Its a top-notch design and can reach 6-7hrs on cheap 6-cell batteries.
I don’t know that much about the 901, but I already see two clear reasons why it would have a battery life better than what we see on the Wind: a screen that is 1″ smaller and an SSD. Since it’s clear the NC10 has neither of these, where can the efficiency gains come from?
(not that I don’t want to believe you, my pre-order for the NC10 is already in!)
7 to 10 Hours with EEECTL
Look at there :
http://www.blogeee.net/2008/10/13/guide-eeectl-processeur-a-2-ghz-autonomie-de-7-a-10-heures/
Pierre Lecourt (From Bloggeeee.net) speak about 7 to 10 Hours with an Aus 901 with the use of the free EECTL app. And 2 Ghz become available for 1.6 GHz Atom.
http://www.blogeee.net/2008/10/13/guide-eeectl-processeur-a-2-ghz-autonomie-de-7-a-10-heures/
Settings are given and this program is available for 900A,901,1000…
At this time, for a consommation test, an EeePC 901 is running with a Batterie BlueTrade 9800 mAh 100% filled and the processor at 1 Ghz.
http://www.blogeee.net/2008/10/15/live-eeepc901-batterie-bluetrade-eeectl/#more-1135
Viva Atom !
Shame to Apple for having forget it yasterday !
I use my aspire one Xp version for about 5 hours straight when at school and that leaves me with 30% battery left. portable mode, not max battery. so 8 hours isnt farfetched
Well I can report that I get 7-8 hours from mine, depending on whether I have the wifi on or not.
Brett, that’s awesome battery life! One question that I haven’t been able to get anyone to answer: what’s the battery rating in terms of mAh?
I Have had NC10 for a while now and the battery life is very good it normally lasts 7 hours so not quiet 8.Also it would last longer but its not to clever to drain lithium batteries completly. it becomes a pain to use on max battery setting, processer scales back and screen is dark.
Battery is 5200mah
Personally I do think that people exaggerate with the NC10, even users. I think they need some reason to justify spending an extra $100 for it. I just had some guy on Amazon claim to get 9 hours of battery life. The Wind I have doesn’t even get 9 hours of life with a 9 cell battery.
Also I just saw an article where they battery tested the NC10 and got a max of 7 hours of battery life, but that was with everything off and the screen brightness just above not visible. I honestly can’t see it being worth the price they’re pushing it for. Especially now with better models of it’s competitors coming out, at a still lower price. The new U115 was tested and came out with 10.5 hours of battery life, WITH wifi and it’s got a hybrid system. What’s Samsung doing? I’d heard they had plans for a 12-inch ‘netbook’ but honestly I think if you’re going to go for 12 inches, you might as well add an optical drive because it’s not a netbook any longer.
I have an nc10 and when having it on silent mode and only doing something like word processing i have seen my estimated time go up to 9 hours, but when doing multiple tasks it it between 4-6 hours.
Me and a friend both have NC10s and we have nearly the same classes and we see who can get the most out of there battery by putting it into hibernations between classes or turning off the back light the second you have stopped typing. It truly is a game of gods.
Yep just tested mine. Screen at 4 bars which is quite viewable and not dark. Wifi On browsing and such for 5hrs 34mins and battery still showed 1hr 12mins left.
So all you non-believers instead of posting speculation and disbelief. Maybe you should hold off until the stats are in. Tho for actual use it is not the advertise 8hrs. I do see a 6-7 hrs of actual use on a regular basis. And solid 7 with wifi off?
And disabling Bluetooth and webcam which many don’t use will add to quicker boot time and less power consumption also.