Lenovo ThinkPad T510 Notebook Review (Optimus)

As expected, the Optimus version helps out with increasing the battery life since the dedicated NVS 3100M graphics card is automatically turned off under light use. If you take ridiculous measures to save energy and turn the screen brightness down to the minimum, turn off the WiFi and choose the Energy-Saver profile while squinting at your screen and not changing a thing, the notebook would run on battery power for a maximum of almost 10.5 hours. That is to say, those are the results of the BatteryEater tool's Reader's Test. The previously reviewed T510 model without Optimus graphics card switching technology endured just over 7 hours in this test. In the typical-use tests, a similar result can be seen. Finally, in the BatteryEater Classic test with maximum screen brightness, WiFi turned on and in the High-Performance profile, the tables actually turn and the non-Optimus version has the longer battery life. The cause of this might be the brighter screen of the model in review here. The minimum battery life also marks the only battery life test with both the GMA and NVS 3100 graphics cards activated and came out to (107 vs. 115 minutes). Using the internet through WiFi at a screen brightness of 12 out of 15 with the Energy-Saver profile activated, the battery dies after just more than 7 hours, that is, about 3 hours more than the non-Optimus model. Under heavier use, the advantage of Optimus thins out. In the DVD test, we were able to stuff our faces with popcorn for only 3 hours 20 minutes with the brightness turned all the way up, barely longer than with the other model.