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.
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Yawn
... and the "7" logo isn't pretty either. LOL
Eventually we will just need to invent better batteries...
The OS and PC components can't continue to get better if the batteries don't get their fair share of improvements
Well duh! If the OS can run on 100 megs of memory and barely touch the swap file, yeah it will last longer. I had Vista on a laptop and all I saw was my hard drive light constantly blinking (and it had 3 gigs of memory).
so much for the supposedly xp replacement
Too bad most laptops can't come prebundled with XP anymore...
Wait, Stop the press. Are you telling me that a more demanding OS that only been released for a couple of week isn't as battery efficient as a "How many years old highly polished" OS. Thank you captain obvious.
and I bet battery life is better with Windows 9x over XP. Speaking for myself, I am more than happy using an OS that is a month old over one that came out almost a decade ago.
whats new, the bloat is still there, i candy= less life, wats new?
And I will bet windows 95 gets even BETTER battery life....this is why technology advances...?
meh... they just don't make good OS as used to...
and I bet battery life is better with Windows 9x over XP. Speaking for myself, I am more than happy using an OS that is a month old over one that came out almost a decade ago.
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.
There was a time when Tom's Hardware would have run a test themselves to confirm this, and then looked at the effect of turning off various W7 features (like aero) to see if this could bridge the gap... oh well.
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)
Oh well my last comment doesn't make sens, the news' about NETbooks. Geez then they just confirm the obvious with this test! But which version of 7 did they test? What about the Starter edition? Since they talk about netbooks should we assume they're talking about Starter Edition?
Yes, because all newer OSs should be so well optimized that they can run progressively better and better on progressively weaker and older hardware...
And I will bet windows 95 gets even BETTER battery life....this is why technology advances...?
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.
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.
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.
My laptop gets 1 hour less now since I found the option to speed up the HDD in bios. Win XP or Win 7 your choice either is cool but I'm not overly impressed with how you have to save power with the hardware that is in some of these things. I don't just go blaming it all on the o/s.
With all else equal, better batteries are going to increase the price of a netbook. What about an inexpensive, slimmed down version of Win 7? Something still solid in web security (or at least as 'solid' as Windows can be) and pretty looking but without all the extra hardware drivers, etc.
Sorry but......these tests were obviously ran by idiots. The way to increase your battery life is by simply changing the default power save settings that xp's testing was probably done on. For example: screen shuts off after 1 minute of idling, HD shuts off after 30 minutes. This is also assuming your preforming the same tasks in each situation, even browsing at different rates severely impacts your battery due to wireless or even a (draining) Ethernet port.
With all else equal, better batteries are going to increase the price of a netbook. What about an inexpensive, slimmed down version of Win 7? Something still solid in web security (or at least as 'solid' as Windows can be) and pretty looking but without all the extra hardware drivers, etc.
Windows 7 Starter...
keep shooting soldier, you'll hit something eventually
This article means absolutely nothing to those that know how to underclock their netbooks.
With all else equal, better batteries are going to increase the price of a netbook. What about an inexpensive, slimmed down version of Win 7? Something still solid in web security (or at least as 'solid' as Windows can be) and pretty looking but without all the extra hardware drivers, etc.
What the hell do hardware drivers have to do with battery life?
Just use windows 7, and optimise the settings (turn off aero, and windows search (which will reduce the amount of time hard drive is active), search shouldn't be necessery on a netbook, and it looks better than XP without aero (though no aero peek... which is useful, but you're probably not overly multitasking on a netbook)
For all the fuss it had.. XP really is a good OS... We've had good, good times my friend.
XP had exactly the same outcry when it launched as vista did... the omg my hardware won't run this, omg look at the resources it uses, I'm sticking to 98 (or 2000) until it's fixed .. yada yada. Thing is, of course XP runs great now, hardware has come on in massive leaps and bounds and its had several service packs. W7 is far better than XP was for the 'current generation' of hardware they were respectively released on.
Great Article!!
At least some truth out there!
Not only netbooks, but laptops and desktops as well!
Funny, but this morning I thought to myself: "XP All the way!!".
I may never switch over to 7, until perhaps XP's next next next operating system; this all due to the automatic defragging process in the background of the Vista (and clones).
Vista's defrag in the long run is causing notebooks to run REALLY slow!!
In XP I can manually defrag without having to fear the automatic process will interfere.
So far Vista's (and probably 7's) automatic defrag is one of the worst additions to the OS!
For all the fuss it had.. XP really is a good OS... We've had good, good times my friend.
Had and still are having
All my pc's run XP, save one where the HD broke.
It runs linux now!
I'd take 4 hours of Windows7 over 5 hours of WinXP ANYTIME.
So much for Vista SP3, I mean 7.
Too bad most laptops can't come prebundled with XP anymore...
Linux, Ubuntu
There was a time when Tom's Hardware would have run a test themselves to confirm this, and then looked at the effect of turning off various W7 features (like aero) to see if this could bridge the gap... oh well. 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)
So, you are one of those "people" that likes new flashy things. I bet you have the newest iPhone too. Good for you. Windows blinds did nothing but slow down your computer. I preordered Win7 and installed it the first day it came out, but only because I don't care about battery life. I own a desktop only. If I had a laptop/netbook I would mostlikely use WinXP on it (if what they claim is true). Battery life on a laptop/netbook are very important. I'd give up the good looks of Win7 for an extra 45min (Win7 on a netbook is probably the basic model. None of the Eye-candy of other Win7 models. Probably doesn't look much better than XP)