Anyone with using Haswell MBA with Windows?

zerogear

Diamond Member
Jun 4, 2000
5,611
9
81
I am wondering if anyone is using MBA Haswell with Windows? How is the battery life compared to running it with OSX?
 

chin311

Diamond Member
Feb 27, 2003
4,306
3
81
I have a haswell MBA but haven't got the chance to load bootcamp Win8 on it yet. I'll let ya know! Battery is amazing in OSX though
 

zerogear

Diamond Member
Jun 4, 2000
5,611
9
81
Yeah, but I'm not too interested in running OSX. Please let me know once you've loaded it.

Thanks :)
 

TheStu

Moderator<br>Mobile Devices & Gadgets
Moderator
Sep 15, 2004
12,089
45
91
Why get the MBA over other Haswell ultrabooks then?
 

zerogear

Diamond Member
Jun 4, 2000
5,611
9
81
I haven't gotten anything yet. I'm looking for more information on this because it might be make/break in the buying decision.
 

Rakehellion

Lifer
Jan 15, 2013
12,181
35
91
I haven't gotten anything yet. I'm looking for more information on this because it might be make/break in the buying decision.

I can't imagine it would be much different than a Windows laptop with similar specs. The 12 hour battery life assumes light usage such as web browsing where the processor stays mostly idle.
Windows 8 has a lot of new enhancements for mobile, so I'm sure a lot of that battery life will carry over.
 

TheStu

Moderator<br>Mobile Devices & Gadgets
Moderator
Sep 15, 2004
12,089
45
91
I can't imagine it would be much different than a Windows laptop with similar specs. The 12 hour battery life assumes light usage such as web browsing where the processor stays mostly idle.
Windows 8 has a lot of new enhancements for mobile, so I'm sure a lot of that battery life will carry over.

Usually Macs take a battery life hit in Windows compared to OS X. Also, driver optimizations.

Are there any other Haswell ultrabooks out yet?

Um... that's a good question. Yes? I think? There's the Sony Vaio Pro 11 & 13, those for sure.
 

saratoga172

Golden Member
Nov 10, 2009
1,564
1
81
I read somewhere that one of the things Windows 8.1 was supposed to bring was optimizations and tweaks to take advantage of the power saving settings Intel has built into it's Haswell line. Supposedly this is partly how Apple has made OS X so great on battery.

I'm running 8.1 on an older laptop with a Core 2 mobile chip and it seems to run slightly better than 8 and get maybe 20-30 minutes more battery life. I usually got about 3 on straight Windows 8.