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

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."

Comments

fudging at least since James Watt

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Part of the problem is lack of a educated person. For instance, electricity and plugs are nothing new, but many people are still going to buy the 'iphone compatible' headphones rather than a unmarked pair, even though there is no difference. And just listen to the commercials on certain AM talk radio stations. It is like the conservation of mass and energy never existed. One can magically get rid of debt. One can magically get rid of weight. One can magically increase cell phone reception with a piece of plastic. One can magically get infinite energy out of a finite reserve. There is no reason for an normal adult not to understand these things.

And fudging number has been around since the beginning of the industrial revolution. The story goes that James Watt wanted to sell his steam engine based on the number of horses replace, or equivalent. So he measured the amount or work horses could do over a period of time. The story goes he did not make his horses work very hard, and came out with a very low power. I am sure his reasoning was 'sustained work' was what was important. In any case, he was forced to up this number, but is was still considered low. But this is number we have. The horsepower is the amount of a work a unmotivated tired weak horse can do. The battery life is the maximum one can expect when on is not using the device for anything. The rated miles per gallon on a car is valid if one is driving around a parking lot at a constant speed with no accesories on and no one, not even the driver, in the car.

Any number listed in advertising copy is solely for advertising purposes. That is the rule. If everyone uses the same basis, no matter how flawed, such as horsepower, it is a fair relative comparison. Though the exact number might not make any sense, it is useful for ordering. In a educated society, therefore, we would use a scaled number rather than a fixed number that implies some level or precision and accuracy. But, as stated, we are not even educated enough to understand there is nothing magical about an set of headphones. Thank the gods for that, otherwise many companies would be out business and we would be in greater trouble than we are.