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NETBOOKWATCHWindows 7 worse on netbookbattery life than XP?Complaints roll in about run times, but one analyst says it’s too earlyto condemn new OS By Eric Lai, Computerworld (US)Windows 7 cuts almost a thirdoff the battery life of somenetbooks shipping today withWindows XP, several recent reviews anduser reports say.Laptop magazine reported in its blogthat during a recent test, a Toshiba netbooklost 2.5 hours of battery life whenrunning Windows 7 instead of XP, orabout 30% (6:53 for Windows 7, versus9:24 for XP). an Acer Aspire One netbook runningWindows 7’s release candidate lasted 2.5hours less than when it ran Windows XP both were at a low-power idle state).bookuser forums such as eeeuser.com, forAsus Eee users, AspireOneUser.com, for The complaints follow gripes that Windows7 hastens the vampire-like batteryeither in virtualization or via Apple’s BootJury’s still outThe reviews are not unanimous. In a late tageover Windows 7. And Laptop notedthat XP only had a 6% advantage overBut the negative reports are numerousenough that they darken Windows 7’s im-atingsystem, and cast some doubt on itssuitability for netbooks, at least today’smodels.Long battery life is one of the key sellingpoints of netbooks, due to their high their netbooks to ensure that they can runa full business day on a single charge, ormore. Windows 7 would improve laptop batterylife by about 11% over Vista. That wouldbe due to better use of the graphics chipduring tasks such as DVD playback, andcan more quickly switch to an idle statewhen not in use, and generally run morecomment about the recent reviews and reports,but did point to a whitepaper, lastupdated June 23, 2009, describing to driverdevelopers and hardware engineers howto optimize hardware and components forbetter battery life under Windows 7.Battery life for Windows Vista waswidely perceived to be worse than underXP, due to its bloated codebase, whichprevented Vista from running well onnetbooks, as well as the poor availabilityof Vista drivers for many months after itslaunch.with an operating system are key for batterydrain. For instance, a driver that failsto let Windows turn off a Wi-Fi chip when dentallyresult in poor battery life. Samewith a graphics driver that isn’t able toshift processing work from an overtaxedBe patient, says analystJack Gold, an independent researchanalyst, says that it’s still too early to condemnWindows 7. “[With release candi- and the code is not optimized,” Gold said.“Same is true of the preliminary driversavailable.” but by the component makers themselves,he said. Rather than simply recycling theirVista drivers, the hardware vendors need only arrived last month, and “a little timeto perform their magic.”While existing Windows XP netbooksmay miss out on some of these optimizations,future models that ship with Windows7 pre-installed may eventually havethe same or longer battery life than XP“It does not trouble me that current machineshave less than optimum batterylife, or performance for that matter,” Goldsaid. “With all the resources Windows7 will use on a device, optimization willtake a little while to complete.” 40 Computerworld Hong Kong Sept 2009 www.cw.com.hk