Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

AMD — "We're Not Entirely Honest" About Batteries

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the big-shocker-here dept.

Slatterz writes "In an apparent attack of the bleeding-obvious, an AMD rep has come clean and admitted (on behalf of the industry) that notebook and phone battery life figures are completely unreliable. AMD's senior vice president Nigel Dessau says that 'we are not being entirely honest with users about what PC battery life they can expect to actually experience.' He says AMD will now use a combination of idle time (where the machine is left to sit idle, and timed to see how long it takes for the battery to go dead), and 3DMark06 to measure battery life. Great in theory but some of the industry already bases battery figures on a two-test measurement, and the results are still wildly inaccurate."

2 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Isn't this simple? by AlterRNow · · Score: 5, Interesting

    1) Fully load the machine
    2) Time until battery death
    3) Advertise "minimum" battery life

    What is wrong with that? Then I can expect at least 40 minutes of battery life and anything more than that is nice. You will generally not be fully loading the machine so it will always be more than 40 minutes anyway..

    --
    The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
    1. Re:Isn't this simple? by Vectronic · · Score: 5, Interesting

      No it won't... not all batteries are exactly the same, no matter how good the quality assurance may be, and same goes for the hardware itself, every transistor, capacitor, resistor, transformer, etc all have varying degrees of quality/conduction/capacity.

      It could even come down to a single resistor that measures the battery output, could be slightly faulty, and turn the PC off sooner.

      They could still say "40 minutes" but it would be more like "32 to 48"... other things come into play as well, such as the temperature/altitude/humidity... how much dust is in/on the heatsinks/vents, or possibly a fault in the charger... the list goes on...