• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

The state of notebook battery life

M

M0RPH

Diamond Member
Let's talk about notebook battery life. Some things to discuss:

1) OS -- So, OSX gives better battery life than Windows, right? How much are we talking about exactly, has anyone done a good job of quantifying this? Why does Windows use more power, and has Windows 8 brought any improvements from previous versions?

2) Macbooks -- Are these still the king of battery life for notebooks? Why do they do so well? Is it due to OSX, higher capacity batteries, or less power consumption of the hardware? How do they do for battery life when running Windows in bootcamp?

3) Windows notebooks -- What are the notebooks out there with the best battery life in 2014? Anything as good as a Macbook? Just how much improvement to battery life has Haswell brought?
 
M0RPH said:
3) Windows notebooks -- What are the notebooks out there with the best battery life in 2014? Anything as good as a Macbook? Just how much improvement to battery life has Haswell brought?
Click to expand...
Acer says their Iconia W5 can get up to 18 hours with the keyboard plugged in:
http://us.acer.com/iconiaw5/

Can anything beat that? It uses an older Atom though (Z2760). I think Haswell would eat up more battery than that or Bay Trail / Atom based Celeron-Pentiums.
 
Last edited:
ninaholic37 said:
Acer says their Iconia W5 can get up to 18 hours with the keyboard plugged in:
http://us.acer.com/iconiaw5/

Can anything beat that? It uses an older Atom though (Z2760). I think Haswell would eat up more battery than that or Bay Trail / Atom based Celeron-Pentiums.
Click to expand...

lenovo x230 with a 9cell and a slice is supposed to get 24 hours. and that's with a real processor.
 
I get 8 hours on my Acer V5-131 after swapping in an X25-M G2 SSD for the HDD. Came with a 6-cell battery. CPU is Celeron 1007U, running Win7 64-bit.
 
You can get Windows laptops with good battery life, for sure -- I've seen a few Haswell-based PCs that get 7-8 hours. I'm not a big fan of requiring a dock or extended battery to get longer, though, since that usually requires compromising the portability that brought you to the device in the first place.

Apple does so well because it's the only one of that group that controls both the software and the hardware. It can optimize the entire OS for specific hardware if necessary. It's also a lot more mobile-savvy than Microsoft, and it shows. For example: OS X Mavericks has an "App Nap" feature that snoozes unneeded CPU tasks when app windows aren't visible (think browser plugins), so you get more battery life when multitasking. Windows PC builders are inherently limited in how well they can tune the software, and they're sometimes at the mercy of third-party drivers.

I have a 13-inch Retina MBP with a Haswell chip inside, and the real-world battery use is wild. I can get 9-10 hours with a proper workload (browsers, writing, messaging).
 
Fayd said:
lenovo x230 with a 9cell and a slice is supposed to get 24 hours. and that's with a real processor.
Click to expand...

The x240 can take a 6 and 3 cell but no slice available yet. Its haswell tho so if it gets a slice i bet that wins.

I have an ivy bridge macbook pro retina for work and it gets good battery life but it doesn't seem much better than ivy bridge windows 7 laptops
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top