Battery life can be a deal-breaker for many business users, but if you’re looking for a true mobile workstation you may find yourself in a similar position to the typical gamer: you might prefer performance over battery life, because your system will be plugged in most of the time that you use it. If that describes you, that’s good news for the Dell Precision 5510, because its battery life probably won’t impress you.
Even with the 6-cell, 84Wh battery upgrade, the Dell Precision 5510 struggled to keep up with other laptops when it came to the battery tests. The real question is: does the battery matter that much to the laptop’s mobility? If you plan to be around power outlets when you’re using the Precision 15 5510, then it’s perfectly mobile: You can unplug it, drop it in your bag and hit the road, then plug in when you get to your destination. If you plan to use it during flights, however, the battery life will obviously matter more.
As for noise, the Precision 15 5510 is a very quiet machine. We hardly noticed system noise, even when the laptop was under load.
Update 02/24/16: We recently updated the Precision 15 5510's battery test scores after installing a new BIOS that Dell released to improve battery life. The BIOS extended the battery by nearly half an hour in one test, but our discussion of the system remains the same.
