Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#101

Post by dsr_ » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 1:05 PM UTC

nbevans wrote: post #95

optymizer wrote: post #30

Well, how about this: because MS doesn't care. It's too late, the code is too large and too old, the developers are too new, no one knows what's going on and this whole thing is a giant rolling monster with parts flying out every second, killing innocent batteries.

I would argue that the Windows NT kernel is both newer and more maintainable for Microsoft than OSX is for Apple. At the core of OSX is a ton of legacy Unix monolith written in the 70s that I suspect very few in Apple dare ever touch. This can be seen by the fact that Microsoft has never shied away from improving their OS kernel. Recent stand-out improvements such as ASLR, UAC, TRIM support for SSDs, timer coalescing…

And of course the smashing success of WinFS.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#102

Post by bguthrie » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 1:05 PM UTC

barking wrote: post #60

devx wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you need "legacy apps" on a tablet ? The old Windows tablets had 4 main problems: 1) apps not optimized for touch 2) OS not optimized for touch 3) expensive hardware 4) inefficient hardware/small battery life It seems to me that with devices like Surface Pro, the 1) and 3) problems are still ported to the new devices. I don't see legacy apps that aren't optimized for touch and on a 10" screen, as an "advant…

Because re-writing for a new platform isn't trivial. Because the customers want it. They're intelligent enough to know that a tablet isn't going to be as productive as a desktop/laptop. But they still want it.

If consumers want Windows tablets then they have a funny way of showing it.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#103

Post by bcoates » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 1:05 PM UTC

3825 wrote: post #56

JonnieCache wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Therein lies the problem: Full windows is the only kind of windows there is. Today you still cannot boot a windows server without a GUI layer. Windows is utterly monolithic. Apple were able to rip the top layers off OSX and ship it as iOS without too much trouble, because it's unix. (They didn't start from scratch.) Windows, not so much. MS have been trying to do it for a decade or more, and they've failed for the re…

> Today you still cannot boot a windows server without a GUI layer. Please give server core on Windows Server 2012[0] a try. They could use your feedback. [0] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh84...

Server core still has a GUI, it just doesn't run Explorer as a shell and doesn't have a bunch of GUI programs that come with Windows included. When you log in there's a cmd or powershell window floating there with the standard-issue non-themed graphical chrome.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#104

Post by InTheSwiss » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 1:12 PM UTC

mjg59 wrote: post #45

Because Apple have custom ACPI methods for cutting power to unused components and Windows doesn't know how to call them.

Sony manage to get pretty amazing battery life from their new Vaio Pro 11 and 13 models. I am really tempted to get one as it does pretty much everything I want from a high powered laptop and the price is pretty good in my opinion.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#105

Post by mistermann » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 1:13 PM UTC

blinkingled wrote: post #93

Windows and Linux are general purpose OSes. The same kernel runs on high throughput servers and low power tablets. The apps are written with little focus on battery life. The drivers too. Microsoft doesn't write their own drivers and then there's firmware too. It's the one area where Apple has really taken advantage of the vertical integration - they do everything from firmware to most apps people use. But both Windo…

> But both Windows and Linux are more than capable to get this all sorted. Like Google showed with the Nexus 7 - focus is all that's needed. It's just harder for Microsoft considering everything they need to juggle.

Couldn't they just hire someone and say "Fix this. Identify the problem and we will support your findings to get the fix implemented."

It's not like they lack the financial means. I just don't think there's anyone at the company that gives a shit any more (or their is no culture to support the few people who do give a shit).

Microsoft in 2013 (actually, for a very long time now) focuses too much on the sizzle and not enough on the steak imho.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#106

Post by chrissmeuk » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 1:14 PM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #64

barking wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valuable legacy windows programs can run on a tablet. From my perspective that shows that MS cares. Programs written for the Mac can't run on iOS, I think.

Mac apps can't run on iOS because of the architecture difference. It's the same reason Windows apps can't run on Surface RT.

Err, Windows Store apps can run on the Surface RT and do, regularly.

Windows desktop apps could if:

1. RT didn't require signed binaries.

2. You cross compile them to ARM.

Don't forget that Office RT is the same codebase as the desktop version.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#107

Post by bcoates » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 1:18 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #91

bosie wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> surface pro 2, (a joke of a tablet) mind sharing why you think it is a joke of a tablet?

People spend money to conform for mating rituals or to gain power. You don't conform for mating rituals by purchasing some weird thing that no one else wants. (non-engineering defined) Power comes out of what you can do with something, not meaningless specification numbers (however awful they are for the surface pro 2). So to do something powerful on a surface pro 2, you go to itunes app store for that cool new app a…

Huh? It's a regular Windows computer, you use the same Windows software everybody else uses. You don't have to use the goofball metro interface anymore than someone who installs Windows 8 on a desktop does.

I mean, if you're in the market for a big iPhone, you'll be disappointed, but it's not competing with iPad, it's competing with Macbook Airs and Chromebooks.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#108

Post by protomyth » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 1:18 PM UTC

yeukhon wrote: post #85

SEMW wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A quick Google search shows many Windows laptops with equivalent or better battery life. I don't want to state the obvious, but different laptops have different capacity batteries. Atwood was comparing the 11" MBA to the Surface Pro 2 as they have similar battery capacities (SP2: 42 Wh, MBA: 38 Wh), and - as Maakuth notes -- are both made by companies in control of both software and hardware. The fact that you can…

A 100% true test is when you have the same hardware. Running windows on MBA is defect because Apple writes iOS for their hardware. So if we have a magical power to run iOS on another hardware and run Windows on that same hardware, then the test is fair. But that doesn't need to as windows-based tablets hardware are not always as polish as apple's.

iOS? OS X runs on MBA not iOS.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#109

Post by __david__ » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 1:19 PM UTC

Nikker wrote: post #87

16s wrote: post #26

Microsoft turned Windows 95 into a full-fledged multi-user operating system. Segmented user space? Unix had done that for years. All users where admin and it was horrible, but lot's of apps ran on it, so people bought it and used it. Then they merged Win95 into WinNT and gave us Windows 2000. Now they are turning a full-fledged multi-user OS into a tablet OS. Let's make this tank into a bicycle. History tells us ther…

I'm curious to know what they took from W95 to give W2K. I've used NT3.5 and up and I didn't notice any w95 influence, unless you mean start button and desktop.

NT4 was the one that took cues from Windows 95—it took the desktop and start button, but it also took the whole grey UI/widget look. NT 3.5 had the same cheesy look and toy program launcher as Windows 3.1. NT4 was the first good windows version (though Windows 95 was the first to be almost as usable as the classic Mac OS).

As far as I remember Win2k was a refinement of NT4, not the same revolutionary leap as 3.5 to 4 was.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#110

Post by chrissmeuk » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 1:21 PM UTC

chatman wrote: post #94

Wondering how GNU/Linux distros (e.g. Fedora) stacks up against Windows 8 and OS X in terms of battery life.

Comparing to Windows, I find battery life on Linux is much shittier. Ubuntu 12.04 for example on my Lenovo T400 lasts about 2 hours. On Windows 7 x64, I got about 4.5 hours. On Windows 8.1, I get about 5.5 hours.

I did the usual "powertop" optimisation on Ubuntu as well. It just sucks power.