I'm getting a brand new Dell Inspiron 13 7359 with 8GB of RAM, an Intel Skylake i5 processor, and Intel HD graphics (550 I believe). I did numerous hours of research and found this to be better than the Dell XPS for video chatting, for obvious reasons. The only thing I don't like is the battery life. With a 43WHr battery, people on Amazon claim anywhere from 4-5 hours of streaming or 6-8 hours for mixed workloads and some downtime. I ordered a slightly higher configuration of the laptop, which includes a 256GB SSD instead of a mechanical hard drive.
On Dell's website, the models that don't have an SSD are estimated to have an average battery life of like 6 hours. But also on Dell's website, the Inspiron 13 Special Edition, which is nearly identical except for a solid state drive, has an estimated battery life of up to 9 hours.
I can't seem to find any key differences between the one I ordered, and the "Special Edition" one, besides an i7 instead of an i5.
If I get the regular Inspiron 13 and don't get the best battery life out of it using Windows 10, would it make a significant difference if I put ChromeOS or even another Linux distro like Lubuntu on it? How does the manufacturer measure average battery life? Because even in Windows 10, there's a few services/built-in programs I like to disable. Would disabling garbage such as Windows Defender help me reach closer to 9 hours of battery life, regardless of what I'm doing?
I really like the Dell brand, so if you're wondering why I'm so hell bent on getting the most out of this Inspiron, now you know.
Any insight would be appreciated. Thank you!