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Study Shows Laptop Batteries Often Don't Last As Long As They Say (digitaltrends.com)
A new study conducted by Which? magazine has found that "the battery life claimed by laptop manufacturers rarely lives up to reality. "Although Apple's battery life claims were the closest to reality, in the case of some other manufacturers, their laptops lasted hours less than the stated time," reports Digital Trends. From the report: In its testing, Which looked at the battery life claims of 67 different laptop models from manufacturers as diverse as Asus, Apple, Acer, HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Toshiba -- some of the world's most popular laptop makers. It found that while Apple's average claim of 10 hours was proven correct -- and was even slightly better in some cases -- Dell's claims were overstated by more than four hours, and HP, close to five. The times listed in the header image are the average claimed battery life for all of the laptops Which? has tested over the past year versus the times it recorded in its internal testing. That involved charging the laptops to full, then running them down to nothing three times, using online web browsing via Wi-Fi or watching local videos to do so. Out of all laptops tested, the only manufacturer to understate battery claims was Apple. In one case, it claimed that its MacBook Pro 13 could achieve 10 hours of usage, while tests suggested it could go for as long as 12 hours. At the other end of the spectrum though, there were some really egregious overstatements. The Lenovo Yoga 510 has a claimed battery life of five hours -- it only lasted two hours and seven minutes. The HP Pavilion 14-al115na is supposed to be able to run for nine hours, but was only capable of four hours and 25 minutes. The Acer E15 claimed six hours but ran for just under three hours.
Where's my shocked face...
Which? doesn't say much about their methodology in their article, and their reviews of individual laptops are members-only. Does anyone know if their methods are sound? Are screens set to a specific brightness for these tests? How is that measured, etc?
In other news, water is wet, the sky is blue, and women have secrets.
Sites with asshole half screen advertisements, and slow as shit javascript are likely the cause.
I would like windows to do more for us to save battery when needed.
When I grab my laptop to a meeting, having all hundred browser tab's and ton of dev tools and stuff open my computer is "idling" at 20% cpu. But most often in a meeting your are only using handful of tools, like word processing, powerpoint etc... why waste that precious battery power on things you don't need to have running.
How about "sleep" mode for applications. Freeze them and keep them from getting CPU, Wifi and HDD access (stop all background nonsense).
I've had cases where I'm on meeting just typing stuff in word and the battery barely lasts and hour, but should last like 6.
- Anton
The laptop companies put the things into maximum conservation mode before they test. Are they testing "out of box", or after you go to the power settings and change them.
Anyone that is technically literate knows that power savings mode are essential to conserve battery power.
Now, if the laptops were not achieving their claimed rates after power setting was set to maximize conservation, that's a different story.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
we have here is great since we tend to end meetings after laptop batteries start dying. We're moving to MacBooks which is going to suck, because then meetings can then go on for hours and hours.
Lenovo x series have phenomenal battery life, my x240 gets over the advertised 13 hours depending on how I use it.
One obvious difference between Apple and the others is the operating system. Could MacOS better manage the battery than Windows? It would not be surprising that MacOS enjoy a better integration with hardware
No batteries equals no shocking, duh
Published in No Shit Monthly, no doubt.
Better shocked than scorched.
Ezekiel 23:20
There wasn't really a need for a study on this.
What a thing! Corporations not being truthful about the capabilities of their products! I am shocked, shocked I tell you!
Jeez people, this is news? Corporations = deceit. Advertising = deceit. I can't believe this is news to people here...
Why am I not so surprised!
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Anyone that is technically literate knows that power savings mode are essential to conserve battery power.
Not with a Mac. That's the whole point, you don't have to mess with settings to get good performance. All of the defaults around power management give you good performance without having to enter some kind of bullshit "power savings mode" to get good battery life...
It's more like, you just have to be aware of what you are running and how that impacts battery life. Obviously if you are compiling a lot battery life is going to take more of a hit.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My Dell XPS13 is advertised as 7h.. i get.. 7h. wifi on, screen on, light stuff no gaming etc.
It's all about testing methodology and the crap you install or not. OSX is better at forcing crap to be off/sleeping than Windows (Windows makes no specific effort in that direction)
New study shows products aren't always as great as marketers say.
If you pair down the Windows O/S, turn down the screen brightness, and surf text only websites, you might get the advertised battery life, but in the case of Windows 10, there is so much bloat behind the scenes indexing, updating, and doing whatever else makes the fan come on, it is a wonder that the battery lasts 2 hours. I can't believe the crap that randomly runs in windows 10.
My MacBook Pro 13" is the only machine that I dare leave the house with without the charger. It will actually get through a day of normal use without needing a recharge.
Windows 10 has been a huge step back in battery life. It just continually points out the tight hardware and O/S integration is key to good power management. I wonder if price pressure on hardware vendors lead to this point. I guess I can always get a surface with tight O/S and hardware integration, but I quick google search shows even this is unpredictable.
Marketers overpromise and underdeliver. Who woudda guessed ....
... that users actually expect laptop batteries to last as long as "they" say. For me, the battery life projections are more of a perfect-world estimate than one which is reflected in real-world usage.
n/t.
They must have gotten some dud acer e15 for such a short battery life. I've currently been browsing the web over wifi on one for about 3 hours (no videos) and the battery indicator says 10 hours left. There isn't that much but that's a lot better than the 3 hours total they got.
I wonder if the manufacturers are gaming the battery tests in a similar way to VW et al, though I do have a nasty suspicious mind.
Computer vendors have been wildly exaggerating battery life for as long as there have been battery-powered computers. Why does the N.S. Sherlock Institute need to conduct a study? Was Captain Obvious otherwise occupied?
I buy Chinese electronics only, they always advertise poor battery times, and they are poor, I always thought regular electronic brands were better, now I know Chinese are better.
I came here to ask about the Pope. Does anyone know what religion he is?
ask that bear over there, heading into the trees with some loo roll
Never seen such a huge group of Whoosh-ies.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Hindenbook surfaces again!
water is wet.
I have a 10" tablet. I can use that thing for hours and hours every day for a week without having to charge it. It's not a laptop, but it does have a nice bright 10" IPS screen (which is way better than that TN joke on my laptop). Both my laptops last about two hours or just enough to view a full movie on battery if I'm on a train or something like that. All the laptops seem to have real battery life of 2 (most common) to 4 hours (rare). I've read this Macbook thing has 10 hours, perhaps that's true and if it is then good for those who have one. Generally 2 hours of Screen On Time is very little. It's possible to leave your home without dragging a phone or tablet charger along but there's little to no point in bringing a laptop without the power brick. It's possible to do much, much better. A bigger battery would be a good start. You can detach the battery on some laptops (essential feature, btw). Both of my batteries are really small and light. It's no wonder they don't last that long. I'd personally take the weight and size of a real battery and have an actual mobile device. Current laptops are just "mobile" in the sense that you can move them from power outlet to power outlet.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
In other news... cars don't actually get the same MPG in real world driving as their manufacturer's claim. Sources say "the [fuel efficiency] claimed by [car] manufacturers rarely lives up to reality."
Is this new information? Try running the tests after a year of use, too. It will be even less.
Personally I use "System Monitor II" (gadget - works on most versions of Windows) because it has CPU core parking abilities which most modern CPU's have but Windows disables them. It can potentially make your battery last longer when unplugged, but also cut down on your electricity bill. I disable the network access for it in firewall and have checked it against several antivirus programs -
Down the bottom of the gadget are 3 basic performance profiles, but even if you leave it on the PS (power saving) one all the time and it senses a lot of resources are being used it is still good. Obviously benchmarking won't be as good unless you put it into performance mode though.
http://www.myfavoritegadgets.info/monitors/SystemMonitorII/systemmonitorII.html
I have a generation 3 i5 in my laptop, and a 4th Gen i7 in my desktop, works well on both
.
To suggest that "power savings mode" is "bullshit".
Or, you know, maybe it's a valuable "feature" that is "appropriately named" and "adds value while harming no one".
They needed to do a study for that?