MBP Battery Life in Windows

[Gryfon19]

Has anyone else found that the battery life in Windows (Boot Camp) seem to be substantially shorter than in OSX? Just bought a MBP that I need to use Windows on fairly frequently and I'm surprised by the substantial difference in the estimated remaining battery time in Windows vs. OSX.

Yes, I've turned off things such as Bluetooth, Wireless, turned screen brightness low and turned off the illuminated keyboard...

 

[alphaod]

You can't switch the GPU in Windows.

 

[amitdoc2b]

Has anyone else found that the battery life in Windows (Boot Camp) seem to be substantially shorter than in OSX? Just bought a MBP that I need to use Windows on fairly frequently and I'm surprised by the substantial difference in the estimated remaining battery time in Windows vs. OSX.

Yes, I've turned off things such as Bluetooth, Wireless, turned screen brightness low and turned off the illuminated keyboard...

which mbp and which battery. there is 17" umbp, 17" penryn, 15" umbp, and 15" penryn.

 

[Gryfon19]

You can't switch the GPU in Windows.

Does that mean then that the more powerful GPU is the one used in Windows and therefore sucking down battery like there's no tomorrow?

 

[iLog.Genius]

I mean unless there is official documentation on battery life, we could say your battery life is normal. Apple's hardware and Mac OS X work together by optimizing performance which will result in greater battery life when compared to usage in Windows where Apple doesn't have the opportunity to provide resources to optimize.

I guess that goes in with Windows isn't "supported" by Apple.

Anybody have battery life different to what the OP is stating?

 

[Abstract]

Windows requires significantly more power than when they run OS X to achieve the same battery life. It doesn't matter if you use WinXP or Vista. It has been seen again and again in reviews. Nobody really knows why, but it appears to be due to inferior power management of components in the system.

Mac laptops actually have rather small battery capacity when compared to some PC equivalents for this very reason. In fact, the new 15" unibody MBP has essentially the same battery life as the previous 15" MBP when running typical applications, and slightly lower battery life when watching a DVD. However, the battery capacity of the 15" unibody MBP is around 20% lower than the previous MBPs. Amazing, no?


Also......See this.

In testing the first batch of Centrino 2 notebooks that Jarred received he noted that he can't seem to find a mainstream notebook with a 50 - 60WHr battery that can come close to offering the sort of battery life you get out of the Macs. Even in his idle tests (just leave the computer at the desktop without doing anything or putting it to sleep) Jarred has been finding many mainstream notebooks only seem to last 3 or 4 hours at best.

Welcome to OS X, bitches.

 

[ryannazaretian]

Windows requires significantly more power than when they run OS X to achieve the same battery life. It doesn't matter if you use WinXP or Vista. It has been seen again and again in reviews. Nobody really knows why, but it appears to be due to inferior power management of components in the system.

Mac laptops actually have rather small battery capacity when compared to some PC equivalents for this very reason. In fact, the new 15" unibody MBP has essentially the same battery life as the previous 15" MBP when running typical applications, and slightly lower battery life when watching a DVD. However, the battery capacity of the 15" unibody MBP is around 20% lower than the previous MBPs. Amazing, no?


Also......See this.





Welcome to OS X, bitches.

I have to disagree with you that Windows is that inefficient. It is not as efficient as OSX, but it's not that bad either. People get better battery life running Windows in Parallels than they do running in bootcamp. That makes no sense to me. Same thing with the laptop getting scorching hot in Windows. Apple has something up with bootcamp that they're not telling us. The people at Apple who designed bootcamp are pretty incompetent at programming (IE trackpad driver, keyboard driver, etc...) All the Apple hardware devices have horrible drivers in windows. I kept on freezing in Vista, and Apple blames Microsoft for the problem, however, I know better. I've been running Vista on my laptops since RC1 and never had a hard freeze. Never had a hard freeze on my Early '08 15" MBP either before it was replaced. The Unibody 15" has some problem that makes Vista and Windows 7 freeze randomly for no reason. I have no idea if it's hardware or a driver problem, but Apple refuses to help. I installed the trackpad driver update that came out in December that caused Windows to go on a BSOD extravaganza.

I've also noticed that the keyboard manager in Windows sucks a lot of CPU time as well while sitting idle. Why? Also, I cannot switch to the 9400M. Why? Why the hell does this thing get up to 200 degrees without the fan speeding up?!?!

Apple needs to work on some updates. I hope they fix these issues soon or in Snow Leopard. I would pay for SL just to get Windows functioning the way it's supposed to. Windows should get about the same battery life as OSX as it is running on the same exact hardware as OSX.

I love OSX to death, but I also like Windows. I need Windows to play my Steam games and to use Visual Studio for my college programming class (Yea... Xcode... I know, but they won't let me use it).

 

[kastenbrust]

Windows Sucks, and Windows 7 has the worst battery life performance of them all. I can burn through up to 2% a minuet in idle. I wish Microsoft didn't lie and make claims about how Windows 7 has better power management techniques because it doesn't.

However i agree with the above poster sometimes its necessary to use Windows for Visual Studio.

 

[tubbymac]

It all comes down to drivers. Apple has written amazing drivers for OSX that are very efficient for power consumption. I'm constantly amazed by how much battery life they squeeze out of the comparably smaller batteries they use.

On Windows it comes down to drivers as well. Go to Best Buy and get a cheap $500 PC notebook and you'll get junk drivers and 2 hours of battery life. Run bootcamp on an Apple with drivers that don't even bother with power efficiency and again you get 2 hours of battery life.

But buy a high end product and you'll see what good drivers can do. My Sony TX gets 6.5 to 7.5 hours of battery life and weighs 2.5 pounds. It was capable of this years ago before Apple even invented the new MBP 17 battery.

It's not really that Windows is terrible at power consumption. It's that most drivers for Windows are terrible. Only a few companies care about writing power efficient drivers for Windows and Apple is definitely NOT one of those companies.

 

[kastenbrust]

It all comes down to drivers. Apple has written amazing drivers for OSX that are very efficient for power consumption. I'm constantly amazed by how much battery life they squeeze out of the comparably smaller batteries they use.

On Windows it comes down to drivers as well. Go to Best Buy and get a cheap $500 PC notebook and you'll get junk drivers and 2 hours of battery life. Run bootcamp on an Apple with drivers that don't even bother with power efficiency and again you get 2 hours of battery life.

But buy a high end product and you'll see what good drivers can do. My Sony TX gets 6.5 to 7.5 hours of battery life and weighs 2.5 pounds. It was capable of this years ago before Apple even invented the new MBP 17 battery.

It's not really that Windows is terrible at power consumption. It's that most drivers for Windows are terrible. Only a few companies care about writing power efficient drivers for Windows and Apple is definitely NOT one of those companies.

Windows (Microsoft) makes the drivers.

 

[toebs]

It all comes down to drivers. Apple has written amazing drivers for OSX that are very efficient for power consumption. I'm constantly amazed by how much battery life they squeeze out of the comparably smaller batteries they use.

On Windows it comes down to drivers as well. Go to Best Buy and get a cheap $500 PC notebook and you'll get junk drivers and 2 hours of battery life. Run bootcamp on an Apple with drivers that don't even bother with power efficiency and again you get 2 hours of battery life.

But buy a high end product and you'll see what good drivers can do. My Sony TX gets 6.5 to 7.5 hours of battery life and weighs 2.5 pounds. It was capable of this years ago before Apple even invented the new MBP 17 battery.

It's not really that Windows is terrible at power consumption. It's that most drivers for Windows are terrible. Only a few companies care about writing power efficient drivers for Windows and Apple is definitely NOT one of those companies.

Windows do suck at power management.
I have several high-end PC laptops, lenovo think pads, del xps and stuff, and they all get ****** battery time.

The reason why your TX has such a great battery time, is because of 7800 mAH battery or something like that, small monitor, and slow hardware.

 

[tubbymac]

Windows (Microsoft) makes the drivers.

Uh, what? There's being a fanboy which is okay and there's just being wrong. Microsoft does not make the drivers. ATI and Nvidia make the graphic drivers for most machines. Broadcom, Atheros, and Intel make the wireless drivers. Intel, AMD, Nvidia, and Via make the chipset drivers. Creative Labs, Realtek, SigmaTel, and various other companies make the sound card drivers. I could go on but suffice to say you're completely wrong on that.

The reason why your TX has such a great battery time, is because of 7800 mAH battery or something like that, small monitor, and slow hardware.

Well obviously it's going to seem slow and archaic by today's standards but it was one of the best at it's time. This machine was released in like 2005-2006. I still use it sometimes when I need something even lighter/smaller than my Air.

 

[Abstract]

Windows (Microsoft) makes the drivers.

That's not true though.

I have to disagree with you that Windows is that inefficient. It is not as efficient as OSX, but it's not that bad either. People get better battery life running Windows in Parallels than they do running in bootcamp. That makes no sense to me. Same thing with the laptop getting scorching hot in Windows. Apple has something up with bootcamp that they're not telling us. The people at Apple who designed bootcamp are pretty incompetent at programming (IE trackpad driver, keyboard driver, etc...) All the Apple hardware devices have horrible drivers in windows. I kept on freezing in Vista, and Apple blames Microsoft for the problem, however, I know better. I've been running Vista on my laptops since RC1 and never had a hard freeze. Never had a hard freeze on my Early '08 15" MBP either before it was replaced. The Unibody 15" has some problem that makes Vista and Windows 7 freeze randomly for no reason. I have no idea if it's hardware or a driver problem, but Apple refuses to help. I installed the trackpad driver update that came out in December that caused Windows to go on a BSOD extravaganza.

Many 10" netbooks with 6-cell batteries have a capacity of around 4000 to 4500 mAh, and last around 5 hours doing just web-surfing. They use Atom processors as well. A MacBook running a proper Intel C2D processor lasts for 5 hours when just websurfing. They all have LED screens, harddrives, etc. However, the MacBook uses a much larger 13.3" screen, and uses a proper laptop processor.

See this.

 

[Gryfon19]

I just want Windows to give me more time per battery charge than it does on my MBP!

But if it seems most agree that, on the Windows side, I simply won't get as much time out of the battery then I feel better that mine's not broken. Thanks.

 

[ryannazaretian]

That's not true though.




Many 10" netbooks with 6-cell batteries have a capacity of around 4000 to 4500 mAh, and last around 5 hours doing just web-surfing. They use Atom processors as well. A MacBook running a proper Intel C2D processor lasts for 5 hours when just websurfing. They all have LED screens, harddrives, etc. However, the MacBook uses a much larger 13.3" screen, and uses a proper laptop processor.

See this.

Okay... but it is still running on the same hardware as OSX. I can get 3.5 to 4 hours using the 9600GT GPU in OSX, and I expect at least 2 to 3 in Windows... not 1:00 to 1:15.