XP Still Beats Windows 7 in Netbook Battery Life
Windows XP continues to roll on with nice little things.
Windows 7 is here and it brought with it a huge list of improvements that should have many users wanting to upgrade if they haven't already – unless if you have a netbook.
Recent tests from Laptop Mag, Liliputing and jkOnTheRun all show that netbook users will get longer battery life while running Windows XP than Windows 7. This is slightly surprising given that Microsoft have boasted about all the work that's gone into power efficiency and how it's been improved over Vista. While Windows 7 may be better than Vista, it's not besting XP just yet.
Laptop's tests found that netbooks running Windows XP ran for 47 minutes longer than those with Windows 7. Numbers across tests show varying differences in battery life, but the consistent result is that XP is a better choice for those who need all the battery life one can get.
Of course, Windows 7 is a more demanding operating system with its more advanced (and graphically pretty) UI as well as all the added security layers in the background, which may explain the drop in battery life. Either way, it seems that Windows XP isn't quite all washed up just yet.

Turn off aero and it still looks better than XP (which always reminded me of a fisher price toy for 2 year old, with its giant start button and horrible primary colours ... windowsblinds was a must for me with XP)
The OS and PC components can't continue to get better if the batteries don't get their fair share of improvements
The OS and PC components can't continue to get better if the batteries don't get their fair share of improvements
In the IT world, most will take time-tested and stable over something new and flashy. The only thing Win 7 does is sell more memory and faster cpu's to handle all of the processes. Poor netbooks don't have a chance.
Turn off aero and it still looks better than XP (which always reminded me of a fisher price toy for 2 year old, with its giant start button and horrible primary colours ... windowsblinds was a must for me with XP)
I think not. Power Management was really bad on 9x. At least WAY worst than on 2000+.
I did my own tests back then: on the same machine, IDLE cpu would run HOT with 98, and cool with 2000.
I totally agree. Microsoft did an incredible job at providing us with a beta program for Windows 7 to work out the majority of problems before the release. Windows 7 was time-tested by thousands of people, on thousands of different machine configurations, with thousands of different software installed during the beta releases. Hell, you can even include Vista in the time-test...which was a few years ago. Lots of learning has happened since and Microsoft has done an incredible job with Windows 7
Moving beyond XP is a must...even as good of an OS as it was. Windows 7 is the perfect opportunity to do so.