MobileMark 2007
In addition to our usual suite of performance and power testing, we also ran the Asus K42F and HP’s Pavillion dv4-1555dx through MobileMark 2007’s Productivity suite. Having switched out our 160GB Intel SSD in favor of a clean 500GB Seagate Momentus 5400.6 with the picky BAPCo app installed, we saw the following battery life rating and performance qualification scores:
| Header Cell - Column 0 | Battery Life Rating | Performance Qualification |
|---|---|---|
| Arrandale (Asus K42F) | 285 minutes | 234 |
| Penryn (HP dv4-1555dx) | 235 minutes | 209 |
Clearly, the Asus wins in both performance and longevity, but let’s also take into account differences in battery capacity between these two mobile platforms. Asus outfits its offering with a 63Wh Li-Ion battery pack (14.4V, 4.4Ah), while HP employs a 47Wh power supply (10.8V, 4.2Ah).
With a significant advantage in energy storage, it’s really no wonder Asus was able to walk away with this one. Let’s normalize the results a bit to see whether the win stands up, all things equal.
| Header Cell - Column 0 | Minutes | Watt-Hours | Minutes/Wh |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arrandale (Asus K42F) | 285 | 63 | 4.5 min/Wh |
| Penryn (HP dv4-1555dx) | 235 | 47 | 5 min/Wh |
When you do the math, the Montevina-based HP system actually lasts longer per available Wh of energy available to it, but because HP ships such a small battery, the notebook doesn’t end up lasting as long. Thus, while the previous page really demonstrated how far Intel has come in bringing down idle power consumption, distilling down the numbers reminds us that there’s a price to be paid for performance. There’s a fair chance that, if we were to turn off Turbo Boost and re-run MobileMark or re-chart a PCMark Vantage run, we’d see lower peak power use and the same low idle consumption. Unfortunately, Asus’ EFI setup doesn’t provide access to such an option, so it’ll have to remain conjecture for now.
