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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dagamer34 - Tuesday, November 10, 2009 - link
I doubt the chipset needs to be actively cooled. And plus, TDP is meant to be a "maximum", not an average. Plus, a higher concentration of power, means more heat, which means more cooling is necessary. I don't see Apple adding more fans to facilitate cooling.solipsism - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
If, like in the new iMacs, they move to a 16:9 ratio they may be able to allow for better spreading and a loner vent in the back. Personally, I am not a fan of the 16:9 for reading on a notebook. I’d rather have them finally get rid of the optical drive to make room for more cooling, an extra 5” for ports and even more battery space.dagamer34 - Tuesday, November 10, 2009 - link
Oops, I meant 1600x900 for the 15".SocrPlyr - Tuesday, November 10, 2009 - link
Why doesn't anyone else make a high end laptop like Apple? Hardwarewise, there isn't hardly any (readily available) Windows based PCs that match the specs. As for software, except for a few GUI tricks, Apple still is not capable of writing good software/code. That is clear with pretty much all of their software. They made a good choice for the base of OS X, but as they modify it more and more I can only see things getting worse and worse until we are back at OS 8 levels of garbage (or was it 7 that was so bad). Hopefully they will get things figured out, but I don't have much faith in them.Exelius - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
Um, really? Have you even used a Mac for more than 5 minutes? Snow Leopard is great. I've never used an OS that can remain smooth with uptime numbers like this:10:15 up 29 days, 1:49, 3 users, load averages: 0.66 0.94 0.93
OS X is a terrific, flexible, stable platform. The only drawback is lack of driver support, but even that is changing rapidly.
Please don't post about things which you know nothing about, it only makes you look bad and discounts your arguments. I'm not some rabid Mac zealot (I'm an MCSE and run Windows 7 on several machines at home, so I know Windows very well) but Apple does have a premium product and OS X is a very good OS.
sigmatau - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
Hardwarewise? You mean packaging? You do know their hardware is often a generation or more behind the competition. Not only do you pay a huge premium for the shiny case, you get old hardware to boot. Just look at the processors and video cards available on Macs. Usualy 6months to a year behind the competition.Johnmcl7 - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
Precisely - I don't understand why Apple gets such an easy ride here especially from a tech site. I've had a Dell Studio XPS 16 for a while with a blu-ray drive and RGB LED screen, even budget laptops now come with blu-ray and given Apple's reputation for graphics use they should have had RGB LED displays ahead of anyone else.John
michael2k - Thursday, November 12, 2009 - link
What is your issue? Apple's been shipping LED displays since 2005 on their 15" MBP, and are LED across all laptop systems as of 2008 and all desktops by 2009.Johnmcl7 - Saturday, November 14, 2009 - link
There's a large difference between the two, have a look at the article on this site for the Studio XPS 16 if you're not familiar between the two. Apple currently don't ship any machines with RGB LED backlit displays.Although they do offer LED backlit displays on their machines now, they were also slow to adopt this technology. Given the premium price they charge and this being a tech site I'm surprised they're given so much praise while offering basic or older technology lagging behind rivals. Never mind even rivals, many budget machines are using more advanced technology than Apple do although I guess they need to string out upgrades to ensure people keep buying machines.
michael2k - Saturday, November 14, 2009 - link
So you're asking why Apple doesn't offer cutting edge HW?Apple does; the issue is what HW it is you're looking for. As outlined in the article it is the battery (and battery life) and the physical case design.
Look at the new Adamo and Adamo XPS systems. Dell looks to be charging an arm and a leg, too, for cutting edge physical design.