Done for 2009: The Holiday MacBook Pro Roundup
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 10, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Still Better Battery Life Than Windows 7
Other than running Safari in 64-bit mode, the best way to hurt battery life on your MacBook Pro is to throw Windows 7 on it. I've pointed OS X's battery life advantages out before, but this is one of those things that's difficult to compare since there's only one brand of computer that runs OS X.
The best reference point I've got is still my old Thinkpad X300. It has a similar configuration in terms of battery capacity and CPU power draw to the MacBook Air, yet gets about half the battery life under Windows Vista as the Air did under OS X. Put them both under Vista and they are quite similar.
I ran a few more tests with the MacBook Pro under Windows 7 to see what the final tally was. Apparently the latest version of Boot Camp improves Windows 7 battery life, but I like having numbers to back up unverified claims.
I ran two tests under Windows 7, our light wireless web browsing test and our XviD playback test. The reason I chose these two is simple: I wanted one where the system spent a good amount of time in an idle state (up to 20 seconds between web page loads in the web browsing test) and another where the system was constantly busy (with no hardware XviD offload, the CPU has much less downtime).
Windows 7 was configured to maximize battery life, running in its power saving mode. Unlike the test I ran in the last review, I used IE8 and Windows Media Player 11 in Windows 7 while I used Safari/iTunes in OS X. The results I got were both expected and quite revealing:
| 13-inch MBP Battery Life | OS X 10.6.1 "Snow Leopard" | Windows 7 x64 | OS X Advantage |
| Light Web Browsing | 468 minutes | 263 minutes | 77.9% |
| XviD Playback | 207 minutes | 198 minutes | 4.5% |
The light wireless web browsing test echoed what I'd seen previously: OS X is better for battery life when it comes to lots of idle time (from the CPU's perspective). But look at the XviD results, the two OSes last the same amount of time.
These results appear to confirm what I'd suspected; throw enough load on the system and the OS X advantage is negligible. Keep it light and with enough idle time and you'll find OS X pull ahead. Jarred has seen similar results. One of his battery life tests involves leaving the laptop idle at the Windows desktop until it shuts off. None of his laptops have ever been able to match the battery life of the MacBook Pro in my light wireless web test.
Ultimately Apple still uses the same hardware as PC notebook manufacturers, so under load its systems shouldn't really consume any less power. But at idle Apple has much more control over the OS and drivers than a Dell or HP, the result appears to be better idle battery life. For light usage or working with a lot of pauses or downtime, OS X just lasts longer.
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DigitalFreak - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
LOL. Not to mention all their products that have caught fire, melted, discolored, overheated... I could go on and on. QC is definitely NOT one of Apple's strong points.sprockkets - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
When any other laptop discolors, it's business as usual.When it happens to an Apple product, the users raise hell, and Apple replaces it for free even if it is no longer under warranty.
There's your explanation.
damianrobertjones - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
Tell that to many, many people that have dead ipods/iphones/macs. Just read some forums and you'll find that apple often turn people away EVEN when in warrantyJimmyJimmington - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
My dead iPod was turned away at an Apple store even though it was under warranty. Took one look at it and said no way. I shipped it to them using some online form and they replaced it no questions asked :/solipsism - Tuesday, November 10, 2009 - link
[quote]Even Apple's default hardware choices make a lot of sense. You pay more for faster processors and larger screens. My biggest complaint, as always, is that Apple doesn't give the entry level 13-inch MacBook Pro enough memory.[/quote]— For their cheapest machine it’s more than adequate for the average consumer. This shows that without having a single piece of crapware installed the memory footprint of a new system is quite low compared to other vendors.
• [url]http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/352903/apple-the-c...[/url]
fyleow - Tuesday, November 10, 2009 - link
I'm a bit surprised on the lack of comment regarding screen resolution. The 15 inch MBP is a particularly bad offender with only 1440 x 900. That's unacceptable when competitors have been offering much higher resolution for awhile now.Hopefully the next generation will bring higher screen resolutions. The only acceptable resolution in the line up is the 17 inch and maybe the 13 inch though some manufacturers are offering 1600 x 900 screens.
solipsism - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
One area that Apple just doesn’t do well is scaling of visual elements. Until they can offer something like Windows Presentation Foundation or actually get RI then they really can’t move to a higher dot pitch. The 17” ppi to high for me.The area that I’m surprised I didn’t see mentioned is the display type and backlight used on all MBPs. These are uneven, low-luminous LCD backlights and cheap TN displays. I don’t know if the non-Macs in the article are using similar tech, better, for the comparison, but most notebooks on the market use cheap displays. I find this to be as important than having a slightly faster CPU.
solipsism - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
Oops, meant to write… "These aren’t…"londor - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
Current MBPs have high quality displays.http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?ci...">http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?ci...
Zak - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
Um? Not sure what you're talking about. They're very bright LED back-lit screens.Z.