Gaming Laptop Battery Life

[Student1356]

At the moment I am looking to buy a gaming laptop: The 15.6" Octane III for gaming, graphic design, programming and general work and word processing. Since it is a laptop I will be taking it around, but since it is going to be loaded with a gtx 1070 and i7-7700k, I am concerned the battery life would be too short to carry around when I am not doing processor or GPU intensive tasks. Is there any way to extend the battery life e.g. by not using the dedicated graphics card on the go so that it reaches 7-10hrs of battery life like a cheaper regular everyday PC or is 2-5hrs of battery life fixed for all gaming laptops.

 

[keynes]

I don't think 5 hours is even possible. I don't think you are able to switch to a dedicated GPU with the Octane.

 

[ubuysa]

Laptops are a massive compromise between power and portability, it would easily be possible to build a laptop with a 10 hour battery life - but it would be so heavy you wouldn't want to carry it around!

Assuming you'll be using Windows you can easily create a power scheme that sacrifices performance for battery life and disabling the dGPU would also help. Personally though I think that expecting as much as 7 to 10 hours from a laptop on battery is asking a bit much.

 

[Scott]

Asking more than 2 hours from a desktop grade Octane III is pushing it, never mind 5.

 

[JDA1982]

For non-gaming, I can get maybe 2 hours from my Octane III on the battery but it really relies on not doing anything remotely taxing. Gaming you're looking at less than an hour.

If you need a laptop for portability and work but you also really want a gaming laptop I'd get two laptops, 1 smaller cheaper one with good battery life (you'll still struggle to get 5 hours but over 3 is possible) and then a gaming laptop (or even a tower which would be considerably cheaper) for gaming at home.

I wouldn't lug my Octane II around and the battery life isn't really worth it for me. That's the compromise of having a proper gaming laptop that can complete with gaming desktops.