Internet Battery Life, Round 2
We were a bit concerned with some of the Internet battery life results, so we decided to retest all of the systems using different websites. We felt that variance in the content of the webpages we used originally, even with repeated testing, might have skewed some of the results, so we switched to websites that present content more consistently. This time, we selected Yahoo!, MSN, the main YouTube page (no videos actually playing), and the Facebook login page (representing a simple web page, though logging in on Facebook makes it a lot more complex). The Yahoo! page is active while the other three are in tabs and their content is not visible. Here are the results for both systems.
[Drum roll…]
Okay, we're not finished yet, since we're still running some of these tests on the laptops. We'll update this page as we complete additional tests, so check back during the week. You can see what we mean when we say the results were inconsistent, however, as the placement of certain OSes is very different from our original Internet tests. On the NV52, all of the Balanced battery results are a lot closer to the Power Saver results this time, with the largest difference coming in Windows 7 at 9%. That isn't entirely out of sync with what we would expect, since Flash content may result in the CPU running at higher speeds without the limits imposed by Power Saver. However, Windows 7 suddenly drops to the back of the pack and we again have to question the results. [Queue yet another retest.] Ubuntu still shows a 27% boost in battery life by using FlashBlock, but that's less than the 44% boost shown originally. That makes sense, considering we aren't using sites with nearly as much Flash content. We will update the charts with Vista + Firefox results later this week and rerun the Windows 7 tests just to be safe.
The NV58 results aren't any better at clearing things up, since this time Windows 7 has a huge lead in its Power Saver result but trails by a significant amount in the Balanced test. So despite using sites that appear to be more consistent at first blush, we're afraid that there's still variability and we need to run more tests. Another interesting aspect is that Ubuntu hardly shows any difference between Firefox and Firefox + FlashBlock on the NV52, garnering a scant 5% increase in battery life. At least XP and Vista generate relatively consistent results, which is more in line with what we would expect. Of course, expectations are frequently wrong, which brings us to round three….
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
106 Comments
View All Comments
PrinceGaz - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
When surfing on my iTouch, I find that the vast majority of websites display almost the same (complete with images) despite the lack of Flash, and Java as well for that matter (it does at least support JS). There are just the odd undisplayed areas which in most cases are where I know ads would be normally. A very few websites use Flash for navigation and content display without any alternative version of the site available, but the overwhelming majority of sites display fine.That being said, I would prefer to have the option to enable Flash and/or Java if I wished, but would probably leave Flash off most of the time given the likely impact it would have on battery-life and overall responsiveness.
strikeback03 - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
Is there a way to force a mobile version of ESPN that still displays all the links that are flash on the main site?emboss - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
For day-to-day browsing I have flash turned off. Even on Windows it speeds things up, and as a bonus kills most of the ads that try and get around ad blocking. Excluding YouTube videos, I maybe have to enable it once a month or so to use a site that's broken enough to require it.Then again, I use the internet for information rather than entertainment, and things like MSDN don't require flash :)
sc3252 - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
Flash isnt really a part, you can view most sites without it. The only sites that really need it are those crapy sites you really dont want to be at.Another nice point to make is how poorly optimized flash is for GNU/Linux. I am not surprised when using firefox without blocking flash you get such lower battery life since there is almost no acceleration on GNU/Linux. With a 3.2ghz core 2 I can't watch fullscreen flash without skipping and jerking on Debian testing.
pcfxer - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
With my 2.9GHz Athlon X2 5000+ BE, 4GB RAM on PC-BSD 64-bit (with the stock nvidia drivers), I am able to view full screen HD flash without a hint of trouble. This is handled via binary emulation of Linux running Firefox linux with linux flash plugins.Perhaps, anand could test a REAL Unix-like OS and try out PC-BSD. It is MORE "free" than Linux (GPL).
pcfxer - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
I realize that some people may mistake this "REAL Unix-like" for seriousness, it is a joke btw. That said, I am serious about testing PC-BSD - I am a tester for them anyhow ;).