Microsoft: Windows 7 can offer better battery life
Ruston Panabaker, Microsoft's principal program manager of strategic silicon partnering, shows how later builds of Windows 7 were able to let the processor enter low-power states for longer periods of time, saving more power.
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)SAN FRANCISCO--Upgrading a newer machine from Windows Vista to Windows 7 might mean that you get to see the last few minutes of that DVD on a long flight.
At a demo on Tuesday, Microsoft showed two identical laptops playing the same DVD, with the Windows 7-equipped notebook getting 20 percent better battery life than one running Windows Vista. In general, users can expect newer systems running Windows 7 to offer 10 percent to 20 percent better battery improvement when watching a DVD.
"We're achieving a very significant amount of battery savings," said Microsoft principal program manager Ruston Panabaker.
Microsoft and Intel declined to say just how much overall battery life improvement Windows 7 might offer as compared to Vista, saying there are too many factors that can influence such results.
"I don't want to state a number," Panabaker said at the event, which was organized by Intel and Microsoft.
Microsoft and Intel showed these power consumption improvements results for a system running Windows 7, left, and Vista. The left chart shows consumption while the system was idle; at right, when playing a DVD.
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)The event was designed to outline the joint work that the two halves of Wintel have been doing to make Windows 7 perform better in areas such as virtualization, power management, and performance.
On the performance side, Microsoft and Intel showed a reference system that can boot up in 11 seconds, although again real-world performance is likely to vary a lot based on what's inside the PC and how well tuned it is. For instance, the system shown Tuesday had a solid-state drive and other high-performance componets.
The move comes as Microsoft gears up for the October 22 launch of Windows 7.
Perhaps the most encouraging thing for Microsoft is the fact that Intel itself is willing to use Windows 7 within its own corporate walls. The chipmaker has been an XP-only shop throughout Vista's life. In an interview here, Intel VP Stephen Smith said that Intel had some internal applications that weren't Vista-compatible and the benefits of moving to Vista didn't justify the costs.
By contrast, Smith said several hundred people inside Intel are already running Windows 7 on their corporate machines.
CNET News' Stephen Shankland contributed to this report.
Playing a DVD, a Windows Vista Ultimate system, left showed an estimated battery life of 4.14 hours, but the Windows 7 Ultimate system on the right showed 5.5 hours.
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
Amen
Linux could probably deliver longer DVD playing on the same hardware. OS X though... are you asking people to intentionally violate Apple's EULA for the purpose of testing an OS on hardware that Apple does not approve the use of their operating system on?
I don't know... sounds like a troll comment to me.
[CNET editors' note: Personal attack deleted]
Bootcamp simply tells the EFI to boot Windows from a GUID partition scheme rather than requiring an MBR and which partition is the Windows partition, and then Apple provides DRIVERS for Windows to fully enable the keyboard, trackpad, networking, graphics, etc.
In effect, Bootcamp adjust BIOS settings like you'd have on the PC, but macs don't have a PC BIOS, they have EFI.
VMWare Fusion and Parallels are also not emulators, but virtual machines, but that's another discussion.
It's good that MS is addressing their part of the problem, but it also requires Dell and HP to do their part...
I love my MBP, but they don't run cool. I've been used it on many occasions that it's gotten so hot I couldn't bear to keep it on my lap. I wish Apple would turn up the fan speeds a bit, then I wouldn't have to use third party utilities to make it usable.
That said, if you compare it to just about any PC of the same speed and specs, it is cooler.
Have you tried SMC Fan Control? Go to versiontracker and download it. It allows you to adjust the speed of the fan at idle, when it starts to ramp up, and how hot it is allowed to get before it goes full blast.
Rollcage, getting hot is not limited to just MBP's; it has been reported for other brand models... But it does contradict ikramerica on running cool. Are we dealing with personal opinions or does anyone have any links to comparisons between models on how hot they get?
Perhaps CNET could do some articles for us on the above. I'd be interested.
I suppose it depends on how you use your laptop. I get between 90 minutes to 2.5 hours on my 15" MacBookPro on the OEM Apple battery I bought just two months ago. The Acer I have gets between 6-9 hours. They are used for different purposes. Does this mean, by your justification, that the Apple product is inferior? No, it just means it's used differently.
You've heard the phrase, "Your mileage may vary"?
SMC Fab control is awesome to help get the most battery I can out of my MacBook. THe Acer has that already built into their driver set which is a help, but the third party support on the Mac to address thsi issue is pretty darn good too.
OS X battery life is pretty good. Vista (using Apple drivers) is worse than it would be on a Dell or other. I'm assuming it's the drivers Apple provided.
It's not the maker, it's the drivers and OS that work towards maximizing battery life. There are some Bios tricks you could probably use.
I wonder if you have the courage to actually try a product before passing judgement on it.
Does it work for you taking the frustrations of your pointless life out on a message board? :)
Have a lovely day, in spite of your limitations.
Unfortunately it also kills your brain cells - and that's why I stay away from it!
Arthur :-)
Now its Anandtech.
Yet, you're still here complaining. How about you stop coming to CNET and posting garbage? Seriously. Nobody's going to miss you.
C'mon - every site has its favorites, it "just" happens CNet (and Ina in particular) to be pro-M$... :)
Ina seems to focus on MIcrosoft stories whatever they may be. That's a focus, not a shill.
BogusBasin is much closer to a schill, amen.
It's all in the perspective.
Every test of Windows 7 should be compared to Vista fully updated, as on SP2 with all available updates from vendors and MS. This will show the big or as I think the very little difference between the two.
Next it should be compared to Windows XP fully updates, because so many skipped Vista and stuck with XP.
Lastly compare it to the latest OS X, and say Ubuntu, when you can. When you can as in tests that compare doing the same things, not windows only stuff, or windows only dominated stuff.
My belief is that Windows 7 will get very marginally better results from Vista like someone said 66min vs 60 when a real world non MS test is done. It will lag behind XP, OSX and Ubuntu.
Windows 7 is Vista SP3...Vista SE....Vista R2. Dont be fooled.
Call it anyting you want but since 7 is the MicroSoft fix to Vista. It's "Vista that works". Since MS abandoned Vista (or why would we have 7?) Vista SP3 should turn Vista in to 7 and finish the job of killing Vista once and for all.
Windows, Linux, and OS X.
There are also minor ones out there that have some potential.
@pentest.
The Max OS copied Xerox so perhaps who copied who when they all copied someone shoulnd't be the debate and the overall "Yes this does a great job" factor should be the focus?
You're a Linux user, are you not? I run Ubuntu 8.04 LTS on my laptop, so I can keep up with it in case a customer has me working on a Linux box. And I was just wondering what it has that Windows doesn't? Whom did MS copy to get Office, including the Ribbon in Office 2007? Apparently not Apple, because Apple uses MS Office as well. It can't be Corel WP or Star or OpenOffice; they work, but they don't have the breadth of office suite functionality, which they try to hide by "outdoing" MS Office with native support for more file types (Big whoop! So is it a converter or an office suite?). From whom did MS copy DEP?
Oh, I forgot; this isn't a history lesson, just trolling. It doesn't have to be factual.
Amen
damn dude that sucks. I mean, i got vista put in my mac for pure fun, i really just needed to use some programs and didnt want a separate computer so i dual boot. After experiencing vista i just gave up and went back to xp which i also installed in my mbp and did not have to buy a new computer, it ran beautifully. My mac teared the road apart with xp because i got 4gbs of memory and my mac runs at 2.7ghz so imagine, it was beautiful. Then i decided after reading some threats and how it was free, on getting the RC of windows 7, and it also pleased me (no pun intended).
After it started shutting down pass 2 hours of use (because testing time is over) i took it off and now got windows 7.
Some how................. a friend of mine gave me a fresh copy of the actualy windows 7 with activation and eveything and it also works flawlesly. Like i just would wish that microsoft will be less arrogant. I know that people, for the most part, will love windows 7 ( i love it, and i thought i will never consider any microsoft branded machine (a la xbox)) but after trying vista, they got a msrp on me. I just dont think the 200++++ price for the vista upgrade was worth it and people are now going to be untrustworthy of M$Sucks as they are now being branded. They have nothing to worry, for as good as macs are <10 of the market isnt a threat, but still, image is the best a company could have, and right now microsoft, you are as foggy as the rocky mountains................
Nicely said, I was about to get on that one but you beat me to it. Well done :)
- by streamline35 September 2, 2009 11:46 AM PDT
- On my netbook, XP still gets slightly better battery life than win 7, (no surprise, I'm sure windows 98 would get even better battery life). Win 7 gets about equal battery life to ubuntu. But the functionality of win 7 is totally worth the half hour of battery life (~5 hours with win7 to ~5.5 with xp), so I don't mind as much. I also noticed that battery life was improved immensely when I turned down all the aero effects.
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- by george_liquor September 2, 2009 1:24 PM PDT
- Windows 98 probably wouldn't run on a modern netbook.
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- by streamline35 September 2, 2009 1:57 PM PDT
- You're right, probably not, but I was just trying to illustrate my point - that the older the OS, the fewer resources it is prone to using, the the better battery life you are going to get on something like a netbook.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (88 Comments)pentest, bogusbasin, and other trolls - get a life, and go find an article that actually mentions apple or osx in it. Coming to a thread that has nothing to do with apple and spouting your non-sense like this when other people want to have a legitimate discussion about the article is just trolling. I really wish cnet would moderate the comments to remove any apple vs MS comments that didn't actually relate to the article, so we wouldn't constantly have these flame wars in any article (apple or MS).