Power-Saving Web Pages: Real Or Myth?

An anonymous reader writes "Are dark webdesigns an energy saving alternative to a snow white Google? The theory is websites with black backgrounds save energy, based on the assumption that a monitor requires more power to display a white screen than black. Is this a blatant green washing ploy by Blackle.com, or an earnest energy saving tweak for a search tool we use every day? To find out, PCSTATS hooked up an Extech Power Analyzer to a 19" CRT and a 19" LCD and measured power draw — turns out there is a not insignificant difference ..."

Comments

Re:Seriously?

[amicusNYCL]

Unless the screen is OLED, the answer to "does dark sites save power?" is a flat out NO.

How you do figure, where's your data? Their data clearly shows that a CRT displaying all white uses 85W, and the same monitor displaying all black uses 63W, which sounds to me like it's using 25% less power to display the black screen. For an LCD the difference is only about 10%. The grayscale comparisons clearly show a relationship between darkness and power draw.