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Windows Drains MacBook's Battery; Who's To Blame?

Posted by timothy on from the pox-on-both-your-houses dept.

ericatcw writes "Users hoping that Windows 7's arrival will mean less power drain on their MacBook laptops may be disappointed, writes Computerworld's Eric Lai. Running Windows 7 in Boot Camp caused one CNET reviewer's battery life to fall by more than two-thirds. But virtualization software such as VMware Fusion suffer from the same complaints. Some blame Apple's Boot Camp drivers (the last ones were released in April 2008); others lay the blame at Windows' bloated codebase. With Apple and Microsoft both trying to avoid responsibility for improving the experience, Windows 7's reported improvements in power management will be moot for MacBook users for a while."

3 of 396 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion by SleeknStealthy · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    I am going to have to disagree with you, Apple OSX isn't: "uncannily power-efficient" but rather uncannily degrading the user experience in another OS. Apple is afraid that if their users never have to adjust to OSX they will just become another PC vendor and will lose on their profit margin. The new MacBooks driver support for the flawed mouse design is bad enough in OSX, but if you try to run it on Windows natively, just forget it, I found it nearly impossible (as with Linux). Apple is the most anti-consumer computer company in existence, this can only be expected.

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  2. Re:Don't use bootcamp, but I use Fusion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    there is no way to tap the touch pad for a mouse click under Windows

    Based on Microsoft's past behavior, it's more likely Windows ignores the command that comes from that specific hardware.

    I believe it is deliberate on their part to degrade the user experience on anything but OSX.

    Microsoft doesn't need any help with that.

    That is just typical mean-spirited behavior by Apple.

    Ballmer? Is that you? Somebody needs to tell all the consumers that love their Apple products that Apple is anti-consumer. It must be true. Apple won't let me run all my viruses and malware on my MacBook anymore. What a piece of shit. OS X doesn't even have a registry - just all these plist things.

  3. Not just batterly life by Kuciwalker · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Vista on my MacBook semi-regularly just locks up for about 10s at a time. Not even the mouse/touchpad is responsive. I've never had this occur on any other machine with Vista. It's Apple's fault.