Engima III 520

[FrenchGeek]

Hi everyone !
I have a few questions concerning the Enigma III 520, some of which I have already answered but for which I would like confirmation.

Firstly, battery life. I would need it to last 4 hours, on minimum setting (note taking mostly). I don't mind disabling Wifi or setting the brightness to minimum, but it has to last. I don't mind buying a 9-cell battery, but I can't see that option. From what I have read on the forum, it lasts 3.5hrs, but I didn't understand if that was on minimum settings.
I would also need it to last DVD length, with decent brightness and sound quality (so 1 1/2hrs to 2hrs).

On a similar note, if I understand correctly, the Graphics card (GT 520M, 1Gb DD3) cannot be disabled to save battery via Optimus? Can it, however, be disabled manually, through the Bios and a reboot, for instance?

Also, I would like to know the boot time: from pressing the power button to launching an application, how long would I have to wait? And to resume from sleep? (lid-closing induced sleep, not hibernation)

This may be a stupid question, but does it have an integrated microphone?

And, lastly, for basic Internet & Office uses, as well as the occasional game, will I notice the difference between an i3 and an i5?
And also between 4Gb and 8Gb RAM?

This is the spec so far :

Chassis & Display
Enigma III 520: 15.6" Glossy HD LED Backlit Widescreen (1366x768)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Dual Core Mobile Processor i5-2410M (2.30GHz) 3MB Cache
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (1 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
nVIDIA® GeForce® GT 520M - 1GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - Hard Disk
640GB WD SCORPIO BLUE WD6400BPVT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 8MB CACHE (5400 rpm)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 3 in 1 Memory Card Reader (SD, MMC, MS)
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless
ENIGMA GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 3.0
USB Options
1 x USB 3.0 PORT + 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Battery
Enigma III Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,100/5,200 mAh)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 90W AC Adaptor
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED

Thank you very much!

 

[PCS]

Welcome to our forums

Battery life will vary depending on the specification you have and battery life degrades over time. In our tests on the Enimga III 520 the battery lasted 2.5 hours when running idle with GT 520M. Other settings, such as brightness were at the Windows default.

Nvidia Optimus technology is not enabled on this laptop and cannot be enabled in the BIOS. Consider the 17.3" Optimus II as an alternative solution. The manufacturer specification states the Optimus II has a typical 4 hour battery life under UMA mode and approx 135 minutes with GT 540M graphics turned on & playing a DVD.

Boot time - again this will vary depending on the exact specification and the amount of programs/data stored on the hard drive. You should consider an SSD (solid state drive) if you wish to decrease the length of time the system takes to boot up. SSD's are expensive but worth more than a faster processor, in my opinion.

All our laptops have a built in microphone.

For basic usage you won't notice the difference between an i3 and i5, but as soon as you start doing power hungry tasks such as video editing, gaming or multi-tasking the faster the processor, the better the laptop will be able to handle the task.

 

[spiridon]

Enigma III SSD boot time

Hi,
I have just taken delivery of my Enigma III. This is a model with a 250GB SSD, 8 GB RAM and i7 processor, Windows 7 64 bit.

The boot time is amazing, 28 seconds and this includes typing in my logon password. This is a fast machine.

The SSD drive makes a differnece in my opinion. The build quality is great and nive keyboard.

cheers Steve