Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Retina MacBook Pro Beats 18 Windows 8 Laptops in Battery Life Test

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,490
30,729


The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro beat 18 Windows 8 laptops in a battery-life test conducted by Which?, the UK consumer test organization with a reputation for the most detailed testing in the industry.

which.png

In the web-browsing test where most laptops performed best, the Acer Aspire M5-581T was the longest-lasting Windows 8 machine at 358 minutes, while the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro lasted 30 minutes longer. The Which? test was primarily aimed at comparing Windows 8 machines, but they included two non-Windows machines as a contrast. The MacBook Pro topped the list, while a Samsung Series 3 Chromebook came out in the middle of the pack at 224 minutes.
The longest running Windows 8 laptop for web browsing is the Acer Aspire timeline Ultra M5-581T - a 15.6? screen, 2.1kg ultrabook. It lasted almost six hours on battery - enough to get you to from London to Middlesbrough and back - and fell 30 minutes shy of the battery life of the 13? Apple Macbook Pro Retina, but costs around £500 less.

If you switch to watching movies from the Acer's hard disk, you'd get four hours and 37 minutes of movie viewing time - a little over an hour less than the Macbook.
Click to expand...
Similar to Consumer Reports in the United States, Which? is known for scientific approach and detail in its testing. For example, product testers hook up laptops to lab gear to measure power consumption, use thermal imaging systems to measure heat and use light-measurement kits to test screen brightness.

Article Link: Retina MacBook Pro Beats 18 Windows 8 Laptops in Battery Life Test
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2013/03/11/retina-macbook-pro-beats-18-windows-8-laptops-in-battery-life-test/
Last edited:
daneoni

daneoni

macrumors G4
Mar 24, 2006
11,598
1,146
Is it because Mountain Lion is 'leaner' overall than Windows 8 or just has better power saving algorithms?
 
Xenomorph

Xenomorph

macrumors 65816
Aug 6, 2008
1,397
829
St. Louis
I'd like to know if these were clean installs of Windows.

Windows can be very light when installed. Many of these OEMs load SO MUCH CRAP onto the systems, though. Trial AV may load on start (even if Win8 already has it built-in), some silly 3rd-party toolbar or dock may load on start. Maybe something like the Bing Desktop or Ask Tool bar or whatever loads on start.

"New" Windows computers sometimes ship with around 80 things in the Add/Remove Programs screen.
 
S

samcraig

macrumors P6
Jun 22, 2009
16,779
41,982
USA
I'll have to test my series 3 chromebook against this - but overall - I have been getting a good 5-6 hours on it which is more than they are listing.
 
S

Shadowpig

macrumors newbie
Jan 24, 2013
10
0
daneoni said:
Is it because Mountain Lion is 'leaner' overall than Windows 8 or just has better power saving algorithms?
Click to expand...

More likely it's the 15" touch screen and the spinning disk in the Acer vs flash and 13" screen in the Mac.
 
SPUY767

SPUY767

macrumors 68020
Jun 22, 2003
2,041
131
GA
Xenomorph said:
I'd like to know if these were clean installs of Windows.

Windows can be very light when installed. Many of these OEMs load SO MUCH CRAP onto the systems, though. Trial AV may load on start (even if Win8 already has it built-in), some silly 3rd-party toolbar or dock may load on start. Maybe something like the Bing Desktop or Ask Tool bar or whatever loads on start.

"New" Windows computers sometimes ship with around 80 things in the Add/Remove Programs screen.
Click to expand...

Probably tested as received, which is how it should be. 90% of people are just going to run windows with all the crapware on it because that's how it's set up when they buy it, so testing it in a theoretical setup that only a small percentage of people will use is a pointless test.

----------
Shadowpig said:
More likely it's the 15" touch screen and the spinning disk in the Acer vs flash and 13" screen in the Mac.
Click to expand...

Bad argument as the 15" screen gives more room for battery. It's been said that the latest chromebook has an unusual aspect ratio and rather large screen bezels for no reason other than to lessen the design constraints and to give them 100 lines of horizontal resolution so they can call it the "HIGEST RESOLUTION LAPTOP DISPLAY EVAR!!!!!111!11!". Oh, and we can't forget that the MBP is running a display with 4x the pixels, and a processor that's 50% faster.
 
Last edited:
skaertus

skaertus

macrumors 601
Feb 23, 2009
4,232
1,380
Brazil
I would like to know how the retina MacBook Pro would perform, in terms of battery life, running Windows 8 on BootCamp...
 
M

max pl

macrumors regular
Jun 9, 2010
187
12
6.4 hours huh?
my 4.5 year old thinkpad t400 gets that now. got 10 to 12 new.

which? should do a comparison versus premium laptops, not acers and advents.
this is like comparing a ferrari to a prius in fuel efficiency.
 
V

Ventilatedbrain

macrumors regular
Nov 22, 2012
201
68
Well I got a 13" rmbp and I can say that the battery is absolutely great :) I go through a full day of business use without charging it .. I just hope iPhone gets this epic battery life and become more like the iPad
 
ArtOfWarfare

ArtOfWarfare

macrumors G3
Nov 26, 2007
9,558
6,058
skaertus said:
I would like to know how the retina MacBook Pro would perform, in terms of battery life, running Windows 8 on BootCamp...
Click to expand...

I agree. It would even out the playing field and strictly compare the hardware of all the machines.

If they wanted to compare the software, then they need to get identical machines (say, multiple rMBPs with the same specs) and have one run OS X and the other run Windows 8.

As is, this "scientific" test is a bit... lacking in its scientific rigidity.
 
V

Ventilatedbrain

macrumors regular
Nov 22, 2012
201
68
max pl said:
6.4 hours huh?
my 4.5 year old thinkpad t400 gets that now. got 10 to 12 new.

which? should do a comparison versus premium laptops, not acers and advents.
this is like comparing a ferrari to a prius in fuel efficiency.
Click to expand...
sorry but that's the stupidest analogy I'm yet to read ... Comparing Ferrari to Prius in fuel economy ,. Well surely you mean the rMBP Is the Ferrari right ? In that case a fezza winning a fuel efficiency contest is excellent news for it
 
V

Virtualball

macrumors 6502
Jun 5, 2006
401
11
Shadowpig said:
More likely it's the 15" touch screen and the spinning disk in the Acer vs flash and 13" screen in the Mac.
Click to expand...

Terrible argument. The battery life savings of SSD vs. HDD wouldn't yield this big of a difference and screen size has absolutely nothing to do with battery life but resolution does. An ultra high resolution 13" screen should be less power efficient than a 1080p 15" display.
 
M

max pl

macrumors regular
Jun 9, 2010
187
12
Ventilatedbrain said:
sorry but that's the stupidest analogy I'm yet to read ... Comparing Ferrari to Prius in fuel economy ,. Well surely you mean the rMBP Is the Ferrari right ? In that case a fezza winning a fuel efficiency contest is excellent news for it
Click to expand...

stupidest huh?

i now know why you dont get it.
 
shyam09

shyam09

macrumors 68020
Oct 31, 2010
2,229
2,498
Ventilatedbrain said:
sorry but that's the stupidest analogy I'm yet to read ... Comparing Ferrari to Prius in fuel economy ,. Well surely you mean the rMBP Is the Ferrari right ? In that case a fezza winning a fuel efficiency contest is excellent news for it
Click to expand...

lol
 
L

locoboi187

macrumors 6502a
Oct 3, 2012
711
375
Virtualball said:
Terrible argument. The battery life savings of SSD vs. HDD wouldn't yield this big of a difference and screen size has absolutely nothing to do with battery life but resolution does. An ultra high resolution 13" screen should be less power efficient than a 1080p 15" display.
Click to expand...

To be fair, they should have compared it to the 15in rMBP then.
 
Xenomorph

Xenomorph

macrumors 65816
Aug 6, 2008
1,397
829
St. Louis
My 2010 MacBook Pro gets *pathetic* battery life if the GeForce card kicks in - which is ALL THE TIME.

I tried using gfxCardStatus to disable it, but it just causes some things to crash.

My battery has 91% life (6308 mAh of 6900 mAh), but I still only get around 2 Hours of battery on a full charge.
 
M

mabhatter

macrumors 65816
Jan 3, 2009
1,022
388
Xenomorph said:
I'd like to know if these were clean installs of Windows.

Windows can be very light when installed. Many of these OEMs load SO MUCH CRAP onto the systems, though. Trial AV may load on start (even if Win8 already has it built-in), some silly 3rd-party toolbar or dock may load on start. Maybe something like the Bing Desktop or Ask Tool bar or whatever loads on start.

"New" Windows computers sometimes ship with around 80 things in the Add/Remove Programs screen.
Click to expand...

The answer is DO I CARE? What differences OEMS make? Or how they tear up Windiws on perfectly good hardware. Out-of-the-box the Mac comes ready to meet those lab benchmarks... THAT is what a customer cares about. That is why Windows is miserable dreck now.

Although I do like my super-locked-down Windows 7 install my company has.... Of course they only loaded half the hardware drivers so extra convienence buttons, trackpad scrolling, and the webcam don't work... But the machine is now a TANK. And it only has the ten programs they chose for me, ever so its hard to catch bugs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom