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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touchdowntexas13 Eventually we will just need to invent better batteries...Reply
The OS and PC components can't continue to get better if the batteries don't get their fair share of improvements -
marsax73 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).Reply -
gwellin 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.Reply -
pbrigido 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.Reply -
scook9 And I will bet windows 95 gets even BETTER battery life....this is why technology advances...?Reply