The 13.3" Mirage, battery life, AMD E-350 and hard drive options

[Edge Of Pain]

I already have a gaming desktop I built myself, so I want to purchase The 13.3" Mirage with a battery efficient configuration for word processing and Internet browsing.
The AMD E-350 is good for low power consumption, as is 1 stick of 2GB of 1333 MHz RAM. According to a quick Google, it shows that a solid state drive has negligible improvement on battery life compared to a mechanical hard drvie.

A question is can the E-350 in this laptop be undervolted to further increase battery life?

I wish to put a battery efficient distribution of Linux on this computer (Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Arch Linux, or Linux Mint). I also wish to use my own laptop hard drive but there is no option to select no hard drive on the configuration page.
I tried using the online LiveSupport to talk about this, since I want an option to select no hard drive but every time I tried to use it the representative just disconnected without answering my question, which has severely annoyed me.

So to summarise:

1. How can I configure it so that it comes with no hard drive? There is no option for it.
2. Will adding another stick of the same RAM decrease battery life by much?
3. Does the laptop support UNDER-volting?


EDIT: I am aware that the battery life is 3 hours and 37 minutes in idle.

 

[PCS]

An SSD can make quite a different to battery life so I would recommend one of these if within your budget.

The E-350 cannot be underclocked unfortunately, nor would I recommend this. The CPU will use less power when idle so it is already very energy efficient.

In response to your questions:

1. You will need to call us on 0844 499 4000 after having saved a quote to have your quotation amended.

2. 2 sticks of RAM will increase power consumption over 1 stick, but only by around 5W.

3. This is not supported.

Regarding our live support system - many apologies that you were cut off. We would not have cut you off, it's more likely that your session timed out. We do try to answer all questions but we have a finite number of staff in our call centre - to guarantee a fast response please call us on 0844 499 4000.

 

[Edge Of Pain]

An SSD can make quite a different to battery life so I would recommend one of these if within your budget.

The E-350 cannot be underclocked unfortunately, nor would I recommend this. The CPU will use less power when idle so it is already very energy efficient.

In response to your questions:

1. You will need to call us on 0844 499 4000 after having saved a quote to have your quotation amended.

2. 2 sticks of RAM will increase power consumption over 1 stick, but only by around 5W.

3. This is not supported.

Regarding our live support system - many apologies that you were cut off. We would not have cut you off, it's more likely that your session timed out. We do try to answer all questions but we have a finite number of staff in our call centre - to guarantee a fast response please call us on 0844 499 4000.

Thank you for the helpful response - I shall call when I am able to order. I also emailed earlier since there aren't many people on this forum and I wasn't expecting a quick response. My irritation at the live chat support seems to have dissipated.

EDIT: Tom's Hardware shows tests in which flash memory based SSDs drain battery life considerably faster than mechanical hard drives. Even in the best case scenario, the difference between the two is negligible. http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/ssd-hdd-battery,review-31019.html

 

[Music Guy123]

I was thinking about this, and I think it would be relevant to you, so I hope you don't mind me hi-jacking your thread! Is there a higher battery capacity that could possibly be available for the mirage? 2,200mAH isn't that big for a battery, in fact it is the opposite for a laptop battery! I was wondering, is it possible to source a 4,400mAH or similar battery?

P.S. for extra control of battery life in linux there is an applet called Jupiter, I'd recommend using it for extra battery life!

 

[Edge Of Pain]

I was thinking about this, and I think it would be relevant to you, so I hope you don't mind me hi-jacking your thread! Is there a higher battery capacity that could possibly be available for the mirage? 2,200mAH isn't that big for a battery, in fact it is the opposite for a laptop battery! I was wondering, is it possible to source a 4,400mAH or similar battery?

P.S. for extra control of battery life in linux there is an applet called Jupiter, I'd recommend using it for extra battery life!

This is relevent to me, I am looking through the configuration now and I didn't realise it was only a 4 cell battery. Most laptops have 6 cell batteries, some have 8 cell batteries but they are usually more expensive. A 6 cell battery would be appreciated. As would low-voltage RAM.

 

[PCS]

Unfortunately there are no larger capacity battery options available for this chassis.

 

[Edge Of Pain]

Hmm. I also read on the results page (after clicking proceed on the configuration page) that we cannot request an alternative case so a larger capacity battery is certainly out of the question then.

I must say, the AMD E-350 machine is quite limited in choice compared to other systems.

 

[PCS]

I must say, the AMD E-350 machine is quite limited in choice compared to other systems.

Indeed it is - it's not designed to be as configurable as the others unfortunately. It's designed as an affordable but very capable mini notebook.

 

[Edge Of Pain]

Indeed it is - it's not designed to be as configurable as the others unfortunately. It's designed as an affordable but very capable mini notebook.

I see. Well, no matter. I just want the most energy efficient portable machine with a keyboard I can find which is capable of word processing and Internet browsing. The AMD E-350 has superior integrated graphics to its Intel counterparts and has lower power consumption. An SSD is well within my budget.

However, reading this changes my mind about getting an SSD:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/ssd-hdd-battery,review-31019-13.html

The only mechanical drive seems to have the best battery run time with respect to performance. Performance isn't a big issue for me since the most demanding thing the hard drive will have to do is load an OS off an ext3 filesystem (which control fragmentation very well, read geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/index.php/2006/08/17/why_doesn_t_linux_need_defragmenting) and open LibreOffice Writer documents.