In Test Windows 7 Netbooks Take Battery Life Hit
In Test Windows 7 Netbooks Take Battery Life Hit
Posted 11/11/2009 at 7:06pm
| by Ryan Whitwam
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A new round of testing by Laptop Magazine indicates that battery life on Windows 7 may not be all it’s cracked up to be. Microsoft claimed that their new OS would result in better battery performance on some netbooks. The testing, however, says otherwise.
Three netbooks were tested: the Toshiba mini NB205, ASUS Eee PC 1008HA, and the HP Mini 311. On average, the computers ran down 47 minutes sooner with Windows 7 than with XP. Still, two of the units were running after nearly five hours, and the Toshiba made it nearly nine hours on Windows 7. It may not be the same as losing nearly an hour on a conventional laptop, but it is something to consider. If you plan to buy a netbook, will you be hunting for one running Windows XP?
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Caboose
November 12, 2009 at 7:37am
I'm just being lazy and not looking up the system specs of those netbooks, but are they equiped with SSD's or standard HDD's? 5hrs and 9hrs of battery life is nothing to scoff at, even with a traditional HDD.
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
spentnickles
November 12, 2009 at 1:28am
On my Sony Vaio VGN-TXN15P my battery life went from 5:45 down to 5:10 (Around a half-hour or so loss)... However, performance is much better, even over than XP. Boot time is faster and overall operational time is faster... I'll sacrifice a few minutes of battery life for better performance... I have no intentions of switching back to XP or Vista...unless I find something that hasn't come up over the past few months of Beta testing... All in all, it's worth the sacrifice - at least to me.
FRAGaLOT
November 11, 2009 at 10:14pm
What about the Nokia netbooks that connect via 3G advertized on Diggnation all the time.
They claim 12hour battery life, and comes preinstalled with Win7.
Metalmorphasis
November 11, 2009 at 8:47pm
Im sure its not perfect,but its one hell of a leap up from both XP & Vista combined.
At any rate, there very well may be more faults (and good!) discovered with time, and maybe by then sp1 will come along.
I myself just fixed a printer driver issue,which seems to be one of its weak spots. And this was even on an older machine.
All in all it is a strong robust OS that makes good use of resources, and that I would recommend it to anyone!
dhoge88
November 11, 2009 at 8:25pm
I'm gonna have to say im not real worried about battery life on my laptop. i'm a college kid so i like it simply for the fact that i can easily take it from my common area to my room without having to move the monitor, keyboard, mouse, wires, and tower. plus i'd much rather have windows 7 than xp! :)
Acer Aspire 5670
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