Battery Life

[iago]

So what if I am up waaay past my bedtime playing with the UX180 tonight. Just a quick question to find out what people think of battery life so far. It seems to me from just playing around that battery life is going to be the real albatross around the UX's neck. I was just web surfing wirelessly off my home network and downloading some music to listen to and videos to watch and thought that the battery was draining awfully fast. I have the brightness set to 6, but still - I'm thinking maybe 2.5 hours - maybe. Any early thoughts or suggestions?

[NBC]

http://www.micropctalk.com/2006/06/17/managing-your-power/

[P996]

So what if I am up waaay past my bedtime playing with the UX180 tonight. Just a quick question to find out what people think of battery life so far. It seems to me from just playing around that battery life is going to be the real albatross around the UX's neck. I was just web surfing wirelessly off my home network and downloading some music to listen to and videos to watch and thought that the battery was draining awfully fast. I have the brightness set to 6, but still - I'm thinking maybe 2.5 hours - maybe. Any early thoughts or suggestions?

2.5 hours? Great, you should be satisfied.
My UX50 battery lasts precisely 2 hours, maybe even only 1:50 or so. WLan active, some HDD operation, brightness at around the middle.
In my opinion, the UX has two major flaws:
1. 512 MB instead of 1 GB RAM
2. battery life

With 1 GB RAM and a 3 hour battery life, the UX would be OK.
I'll get the extended battery (apparently same size, double the capacity) and hopefully I get at least 3-4 hours battery life.
Don't know (yet) what to do about the missing RAM, this is really annoying.

I really don't get it: the UX models are really really interesting and in my opinion pretty innovative. Unfortunately it seems that Sony, again, did not think everything through til the end.

I just hope that the UX will survive Sony's DUMB strategy because it really is an interesting product. 512 MB...ridiculous. 2 hours battery life for an ultra portable unit...ridiculous.

[iago]

Well, let me prefact this by saying that after playing with the device for less then 24 hours, I am amazed (and that really takes a lot) of the amount of technology that went into the UX180 - from both a software and hardware perspective. It is innovative, evolutionary in some ways and a marvel of technology. However, I agree with some of what you have to say.

Battery life is critically important. I want to stay connected to the net for as long as possible from anywhere that I might be. 2 or 2.5 hours is just not long enough. Unfortunately, the extended battery is not the same size as the regular battery - it is larger and heavier, and I am not sure that I want to be bothered by the increased size and weight. Second, the memory issue - 512 is usable, obvioulsy 1GB would be better and add a couple of hundred dollars to the price, but I can live with 512 for now. The last issue is the hard drive size. 30GB is a bare minimum, it should be at least 60. If they can pop a 60 into an iPod, thee a $1800 computer should have at least that size.

But the unit, with which I have hardly scratched the surface of, continues to impress.

[mauricef]

I had my brightness set to 5 while surfing last night for around 3+ hours and still had more than 30 minutes of estimated life left. Heavy disk usage and screen brightness really decrease performance. I also defraged the drive for about and hour and still had 1 1/2 hours left on the battery estimate. Not great but certainly usable.

I will mostly use this unit on the go. Does anyone know of a car charger?

[sillyrabbitt]

from another board they recommended the igo juice 70

[efong]

I bought the IGO juice 70 for 23 dollars at certain Radio Shacks which are closing. It comes with tips to fit all the major notebooks. THere is one to fit the UX. Some of these Radio SHacks are closing the end of July, so the stock will be dwindling soon.

[P996]

Unfortunately, the extended battery is not the same size as the regular battery - it is larger and heavier, and I am not sure that I want to be bothered by the increased size and weight. Second, the memory issue - 512 is usable, obvioulsy 1GB would be better and add a couple of hundred dollars to the price, but I can live with 512 for now. The last issue is the hard drive size. 30GB is a bare minimum, it should be at least 60. If they can pop a 60 into an iPod, thee a $1800 computer should have at least that size.

But the unit, with which I have hardly scratched the surface of, continues to impress.

Not sure about the larger battery size (extended battery) but of course it is heavier, no doubt about it.
You can live with 512 MB now? What kind of virus/trojan/rootkit/adware/spyware realtime scanner are you using in the background? ;) I CAN'T live with 512 MB since this is definetely not enough for most applications I'm using.
Of course the UX50 works with 512 MB too but really slow.
I also have an Asus S6F laptop (size of Vaio TX2 but with 1.5 GB RAM and Core Duo L2300 processor) and this thing is a rocket compared to the UX50.
HDD size sucks, I agree. 30 GB are definetely not enough for such an unit.

[SportbikeRiderXX]

efong, how can I find a Radio Shack that's "closing" that has the igo juice 70 for$23? I'm scheduled to receive my UX180P on Thursday accoriding to Sony's FedEx tracking # and I KNOW that I'll be returning the thing if it only works for approx 2hrs with the battery. I have 12V power available where I work, but NOT 110V.

[P996]

I just picked up a UX180 at a local Sonystyle store (I'm in the US right now for a short family vacation). Compared to my UX50, there isn't much difference.
However, the battery life is aprox. 30 minutes better which may also have to do with the battery itself and not the unit. I'm still a little bit surprised since the UX180 uses a slightly faster processor. Overall, I doubt that somebody can squeeze more than 2 h 30 min out of the UX models and as a little hint, the battery life indicator isn't too precise. True battery life is usually slightly lower.

Why did I pick up another unit? Very simple: the UX series isn't available in Europe and I really like the UX models. I also wanted to have a clean english Windows XP Pro install rather than the Windows XP Home modded version by Dynamism (which works perfectly in the UX50, don't get me wrong).
Another reason is the EDGE module. In the TX series, Sony apparently used a tri- or even quad band module, I just hope I could use it in Europe after unlocking it.

I also tried to get the extended battery and the optical drive for the UX180 but the local Sonystyle shop didn't have them in stock and I didn't want to take the risk to order them since it would have taken at least 6 business days to get the party and I wasn't sure I would be still there (in the US).

So instead of offering neat SSD discs with their units, Sony should better get their priorities right and offer a decent battery life with the UX series. For a portable unit, 3 hours are a MINIMUM requirement and the very expensive extended capacity battery is just a rip-off in my opinion. I'm afraid that with 2 hours battery life, the UX series will sooner or later be just another Sony product "adventure".
And this would be very sad since I honestly believe that the UX series has great potential and it is much better than the Samsung Q1 for example or other UMPC models out there. OK, the UX series isn't cheap but with 1 GB RAM, 3 hours battery life and a 60 GB HDD, this little thing would be worth the money 100%.

[seal]

Has anyone seen a 12v charger for the UX anywhere? I have done a few searches but can't find anything, I am concerned about using universal ones incase the UX is damaged in any way.