For many users, one of the key points when choosing a laptop is the battery life. When evaluating one laptop or another, we have to take into account the duration offered by the manufacturer. But our purchase decision should not take into account only the manufacturer's data, since it rarely meets reality. Postensibly the results offered are in ideal circumstances: temperature, little demand on the processor, little use of the fans, etc.. In this article we will see a study carried out by the journal Which? where several most relevant laptops are compared.
In the study we will see, how laptops that promised excellent autonomy did not reach 50% of the theoretical autonomy. Instead, the analysis of several Macs does what it promised, even in it seems to surpass it in some tests. Mac users shouldn't be surprised by the study, as MacOS software efficiency leads to battery optimization. An example of this are the times the fan is connected to a PC or Mac.
But let's go to the test. The equipment used was of the brands: Acer, Apple, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Toshiba. But a unique model of each brand has not been used, so as not to distort the test. At least three computers of each brand have participated.
At least three charge cycles have been used, that is, from when the battery is at 100% until the equipment is turned off. In the tests, the Internet was surfed by Wifi. In other tests a movie was played.
The results have been the following (Although we already tell you that we do not know the participating teams):
- Lenovo: manufacturer's estimated information: 5 hours. Test result: 2 hours and 7 minutes.
- HP: manufacturer's estimated information: 9 hours. Test result: 4 hours and 25 minutes.
- Dell: manufacturer's estimated information: 7 hours. Test result: 3 hours and 58 minutes.
- Acer: manufacturer's estimated information: 6 hours. Test result: 2 hours and 58 minutes.
- Apple: manufacturer's estimated information: 10 hours. Test result: 12 hours.
When asked the manufacturers, the first to respond was Dell, which indicated that each user makes a different use and it is difficult to estimate an average use. In any case, Apple's effort to make its operating system more efficient and thus less resource consumption is appreciated.
