The New York Times asked AMD how and why laptop manufacturers habitually misrepresent their products’ battery life. And it told them! Companies set up a notebook to be all but asleep, then run a particularly untaxing benchmark suite called MobileMark2007.
According to Advanced Micro Devices, the problem with most battery life claims stems from the wide use of a test called MobileMark 2007. Patrick Moorhead, a vice president for marketing at A.M.D., said the parameters for this test include having the screen at just 20 percent brightness, Wi-Fi turned off and no music, video, games or Web pages running. More or less, the test turns a computer into a dimly lit clock, then sees how long it can run.
Why Can’t We Get an Accurate Battery Life Test for Laptops? [NYT]
Many PC manufacturers may use MobileMark, but I don’t know any computer reviewers who do.
Modern LED lit screens are so bright that, during indoor use at least, I tend to use mine at 20% brightness.
But I do have everything else turned on.
Interesting question: when did Windows XP become incapable of actually letting the hard disk spin down? Both my laptop and my wife’s laptop do a tiny bit of disk access every couple seconds without interruption. As a result the drive is always spun up. I know I remember having a machine running XP that allowed the drive go to sleep. Ahh, well, I know it’s a crap OS.
That’s the main thing I’ve noticed about switching to apple. The battery claims aren’t extravagant and the battery still lasts quite long even after 2 years.
My old asus had lost half it’s battery life by the end of it’s 2nd year.
I used to do tech support for a computer company that makes laptops. People would ask why the battery was marketed for 5 hours, yet all they got was 4 hours. I told them that there’s no way to test a laptop with everyone’s unique usage habits in mind. If I’m playing a video game but you’re reading CNN, our battery life is going to vary significantly. The best the company can do is rate the battery for the best conditions possible to stay competitive with other companies.
Yeah, I never believed it, either, but I was surprised at just how many people said, “yeah, that makes sense,” and hung up. Of course, like the article says, it would have been more honest to rate the differences in our personal uses, but it got people off the phone quick and kept my call times low, and that’s all my bosses cared about. I’m glad I don’t work there anymore.
Of course, the real problem with testing the battery truthfully is one of the companies is going to have to be the first to do so, and suddenly their 12 hour battery from yesterday is going to be rated at 5.5 hours with the new tests. It’s a marketing nightmare.
The first one to do it (which will be the one with the beefiest battery) will say something like: most battery life in industry-standard tests, 12 hours, but when you’re ‘workin it’ it lasts at *least* 4 hours (or whatever)
This always happens once everyone is wise to the lie, which is why industries walk the tightrope of plausible denial.
I am with a law firm that is investigating complaints that some laptop batteries run out faster than their advertised lifespan. Check us out at http://www.girardgibbs.com/batterylife.asp, or give us a call toll-free at (866) 981-4800. You can also reach me by email at mcr@girardgibbs.com.