Windows 7 Loses to Windows XP in Netbook Battery Life

**MIG-31** · Nov 13, 2009, 05:07 PM

Green Bay v. Minnesota, anyone? Microsoft's new star OS gets humiliation of being beaten by its own almost decade older OS

With Windows Vista, Microsoft revamped many features and piled on a lot of functionality that Windows XP didn't have -- among other things improving security. An unfortunate side effect of this, though was that Windows Vista was much bulkier than Windows XP and more battery hungry. As a result, up until October most netbooks used Windows XP.
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Source: Dailytech

IvanV · Nov 13, 2009, 05:22 PM

Little surprise there. They both support all the relevant power saving technologies yet there is so much more going on in the background with Windows 7 that it's to be expected that the new OS will eat up the battery more quickly. MS promised an improvement over Vista and they probably delivered it. XP is another matter. If someone made a patch for Windows 95 that enabled it to utilize power saving techniques, we'd probably see it top them all (just like XP itself is winning now thanks to the service packs it received years after it was released; the way it was originally released nearly a decade ago, as they like to point out, would not be able to achieve it).

EDIT: Looking at the results and discarding the ones that were actually performed on different units and months apart, it seems that with 7, the battery life gets about 10% shorter. Not good but not horrible either. Also, some machines lost much less of it's autonomy than others..

Judas · Nov 13, 2009, 05:25 PM

how bout dos with power savings mode..

reduce the cpu frequency to like 15mhz and ram unitilization to 8mb, then reduce the gpu/vga to 4bit 512kb 1mhz

sure you'd get days of life outa them.

But in all seriousness, I've seen the overall time difference on both a asus 1000HA/1005HA going from xp to win7 both increase and decrease battery life span depending on usage.

Frankly i see very little difference...

OldBuzzard · Nov 13, 2009, 06:14 PM

Jason Mick is an idiot and a tool. That article is 100% pure, polyunsaturated, bovine excrement. Hell, a steaming pile of bovine excrement could probably write a more truthful article than that pompous, self-important ass.

He sources people that tested with all of the power saving options turned OFF

Others have tested XP vs 7 with the options turned ON. You know, like REAL people do in REAL life, and 7 whipped XP like a rented mule in terms of battery life.

ExitiosuS · Nov 15, 2009, 01:56 AM

This really shouldn't have made headlines.

I don't like that Driverheaven would endorse such a disgusting article... I'd rather see an article about some new insect on a tech site than an article like this sitting on a tech site.

This is insulting to any tech user of any capacity due to the extremely flawed and biased nature of the article. Why not start posting blogs of ANY article seen with ANYONE'S test? I mean, nearly anything beats this article.

Nov 13, 2009, 05:07 PM	#1
MIG-31 HardwareHeaven News Mod Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Nottingham,UK Posts: 44,497 Rep Power: 244 System Specs	Windows 7 Loses to Windows XP in Netbook Battery Life Green Bay v. Minnesota, anyone? Microsoft's new star OS gets humiliation of being beaten by its own almost decade older OS With Windows Vista, Microsoft revamped many features and piled on a lot of functionality that Windows XP didn't have -- among other things improving security. An unfortunate side effect of this, though was that Windows Vista was much bulkier than Windows XP and more battery hungry. As a result, up until October most netbooks used Windows XP. _____________ Source: Dailytech __________________ Please Post Your News Submissions Here How you can help HardwareHeaven by using Digg! HH Hardware Diggs / GH Gaming Diggs

Nov 13, 2009, 05:22 PM	#2
IvanV HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 3,527 Rep Power: 102 System Specs	Re: Windows 7 Loses to Windows XP in Netbook Battery Life Little surprise there. They both support all the relevant power saving technologies yet there is so much more going on in the background with Windows 7 that it's to be expected that the new OS will eat up the battery more quickly. MS promised an improvement over Vista and they probably delivered it. XP is another matter. If someone made a patch for Windows 95 that enabled it to utilize power saving techniques, we'd probably see it top them all (just like XP itself is winning now thanks to the service packs it received years after it was released; the way it was originally released nearly a decade ago, as they like to point out, would not be able to achieve it). EDIT: Looking at the results and discarding the ones that were actually performed on different units and months apart, it seems that with 7, the battery life gets about 10% shorter. Not good but not horrible either. Also, some machines lost much less of it's autonomy than others.. __________________ Feed the porkers and don't touch the buttons! Last edited by IvanV; Nov 13, 2009 at 05:34 PM.

Nov 13, 2009, 06:14 PM	#4
OldBuzzard DH's oldest Geek? Join Date: May 2003 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 2,330 Rep Power: 91 System Specs	Re: Windows 7 Loses to Windows XP in Netbook Battery Life Jason Mick is an idiot and a tool. That article is 100% pure, polyunsaturated, bovine excrement. Hell, a steaming pile of bovine excrement could probably write a more truthful article than that pompous, self-important ass. He sources people that tested with all of the power saving options turned OFF Others have tested XP vs 7 with the options turned ON. You know, like REAL people do in REAL life, and 7 whipped XP like a rented mule in terms of battery life. __________________ When looking for a reason as to why things go wrong, never rule out sheer STUPIDITY

Nov 15, 2009, 01:56 AM	#5
ExitiosuS Simian Masterpiece! Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: London, Ont. Canada Posts: 353 Rep Power: 46 System Specs	Re: Windows 7 Loses to Windows XP in Netbook Battery Life This really shouldn't have made headlines. I don't like that Driverheaven would endorse such a disgusting article... I'd rather see an article about some new insect on a tech site than an article like this sitting on a tech site. This is insulting to any tech user of any capacity due to the extremely flawed and biased nature of the article. Why not start posting blogs of ANY article seen with ANYONE'S test? I mean, nearly anything beats this article.