Sony Pledges More Accurate Laptop Battery Figures

Slatterz writes "Ever wondered why you never get the 10 hours of battery life advertised with your new ultraportable? Battery life ratings have been a joke for years, so it's interesting to hear that one big vendor is picking up its game. PC Authority says Sony is abandoning the usual (and wildly misleading) JEITA method for coming up with those 10+ hour battery numbers (they're still using JEITA, but not the usual way). Interestingly, the story has links showing the old and new steps Sony takes to come up with those battery predictions. It's good to see the industry coming clean on this issue."

Comments

How is this for marketing?

[Swizec]

Just wondering here, how would a move like this affect marketing of computers? The previous model had an up to 10 hour battery life, the new ultra better omgwtfbbq more magnificent version has "Up to 4, but we're not lying to you this time!"

Somehow I just don't see that faring well with Joe Average ...

Re:How is this for marketing?

[evilviper]

Just wondering here, how would a move like this affect marketing of computers?

They'll leave the old 10 HOURS figure, in huge numbers on the packaging. Then have an asterisks, and a tiny footnote that says "TYPICAL BATTERY LIFE: 4 hours".

Re:How is this for marketing?

[Nymz]

Somehow I just don't see that faring well with Joe Average ...

On the contrary, it's probably going over quite well since the likely reason for the change was customer complaints. Why, I alone have told them a MILLION times that people shouldn't exaggerate so much.

Re:How is this for marketing?

[somersault]

TYPICAL BATTERY LIFE*: 4 hours

*before asploding

There we go, fixed that for you ;)

Re:How is this for marketing?

[dotancohen]

Just wondering here, how would a move like this affect marketing of computers? The previous model had an up to 10 hour battery life, the new ultra better omgwtfbbq more magnificent version has "Up to 4, but we're not lying to you this time!

The new figure is time to 0% power. The old figure was time to explosion.

Re:How is this for marketing?

[dotancohen]

Or until a lot of people and magazines wonder why the hell they lie to us, since we can never reach the battery time stated on the box. Like now.

What are you talking about? My battery always lasts at lea

Re:How is this for marketing?

[dotancohen]

You can tell whether or not your mac hibernated easily. If it wakes up instantly on a key press it was sleeping. If it needs the power plugged in, and comes back to a greyscale filtered version of what you were working on and a progress bar, then it was hibernating.

What state was mine in? I pushed the button and it said "BRAAAAAIIIINS!!!"

Re:How is this for marketing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your kernel hung and became a zombie process

Battery testing methods

[sakdoctor]

From TFA,

The old testing method: A picture showing a naked man stretching his anus to a large and disproportionate size. The Sony employee reaches into the anus and pulls out the battery figures.

The new method involves running the laptop until the battery is exhausted and timing the result.

New Sony Figures

[clickety6]

Average time before battery goes flat under normal usage: 1 minute more than figures quoted by Dell

Average time before battery goes flat under Vista: 8 hours (i.e. during startup process)

Average time before battery goes flat watching DVD: length of film - 10 minutes

Average time before battery goes flat using Office: Fails during write process of important presentation

Average time before battery explodes into flame: 7 hours 32 minutes

Average time before stored spare battery goes flat: 5 seconds after it was last tested

Average time before battery goes flat under Linux:
Never. It is constantly recharged by sucking energy from the superior mind of the user

Re:New Sony Figures

[MPAB]

They should put a big red LED counter on each battery, that way we might cut the red wire before it gets to 00:01

Re:New Sony Figures

[jabithew]

Er, over here in the UK 'film' means 'movie'. Or 'flick' if you're a twat.

What do you call them? Cinematograms? Moving Pictures?

I always get 10 hours+

[JohnHegarty]

Well I always get 10 hours+ of my battery , and I am never cut mid sen..

Re:I always get 10 hours+

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the hell would you want to type a sen..tence?

no lying?

[rarel]

So they will give the expected yield of their batteries in kilotonnes now? Right?

Re:no lying?

[asc99c]

They will run the battery realistically but give the answer in crazy units - 5.7x10^-7 millennia. And in case you want to just check the capacity of the battery, that's 550 liter-atmospheres.

Repent for September 10th is nigh!

[Candid88]

There would simply be no point in selling laptops with more than 2 days battery life anymore, in 2 days time we'll all be dead anyway (or sucked into a parrallel universe to experience a fate even worse than death!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider

Re:HD manufacturers next?

[Anonymous Coward]

KiBiByte? Give me a break. It's like these words were intentionally created to sound ridiculous so that nobody would ever use them.

Sony?

[Bert64]

So do their figures represent "how long the battery will last before it runs out of power" or "how long the battery will last before it catches fire" ?

Re:Battery capacity, not life

[antic]

The Church of Scientology recommends that to save power on your laptop, you not watch any videos on YouTube that criticise them.