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

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#231

Post by blinkingled » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 5:33 PM UTC

Sheepshow wrote: post #228

blinkingled wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft can't build a consumer OS with great power-management because the kernel also needs to work on high throughput servers? Not only servers but they need the same kernel design to work well across a ton of different hardware/firmware combinations, form factors (Phone, Tablets, Laptops) and they do an OK job. But to excel they need to put in a lot more effort (working with OEMs, working with SoC makers is ano…

Funny, the Linux kernel performs excellently on my $35, 800MHz, 400mA ARM RaspberryPi embedded machine, my x86 desktop, and some of the world's largest supercomputers with who knows what architecture. For a company with hundreds of millions to spend on R&D, you'd think Microsoft could match a bunch of hobbyists.

I am as big a Linux fanboy as anyone - but Linux doesn't do power management across different set of hardware consistently and when it does it is with mediocre results. In fact you'd be hard pressed to find a PC Laptop running Linux that gives you great battery life. It's largely a miss. So performance yes, great power characteristics no - that's too hard due to sheer number of variables.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#232

Post by erikpukinskis » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 5:33 PM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #185

macspoofing wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. What are you saying? That Microsoft can't build a consumer OS with great power-management because the kernel also needs to work on high throughput servers? Come on. >But both Windows and Linux are more than capable to get this all sorted. Bingo. So…

Suppose Microsoft rewrites Windows to optimize for the Surface platform. How long would it take for Microsoft to stand accused of unfair business practices in the press? How much risk would they run of being hauled into court in the EU or US? They just paid a billion dollars for failing to provide browser options in the EU last year.

They paid a billion dollars for disobeying a direct court order. You phrase that as if they paid a fine for randomly not doing something.

Your suggestion that they are equally vulnerable to the same thing for solving a difficult, market driven technical challenge seems like a stretch to me.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#233

Post by Touche » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 5:36 PM UTC

rwolf wrote: post #192

Touche wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, of course, Windows can be comparable on similar capacities. Does this need to be stated? Go read the reviews of some Acer or Samsung laptops. Extrapolating the problems of the Surface 2 to all computers with the same OS doesn't make sense. Microsoft isn't experienced at making computers, shouldn't be a surprise that they are bad at it right now.

I'm puzzled, your comments seem to claim simultaneously that: * There is not a battery life problem on Windows machines. * The battery life problem on Windows machines is not surprising.

No, I didn't say #2, I said it's not surprising that the Surface Pro gets poor battery life. My comment about this whole controversy is that you cannot project 1 computer's battery problems to the operating system. My Windows does get poor battery life but we haven't seen any evidence of that. Clearly it can get good battery life as there are real-life computers running Windows that get great battery life.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#234

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 5:39 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #205

devx wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's the thing. They did create the hardware, and it isn't even the first generation, and it still performs poorly. The problem isn't the hardware. It's the software. So either Microsoft makes a new OS from scratch that only works on their hardware, or this problem won't be fixed anytime soon, either way.

I think the point is that Apple has many, many more years of designing their software for a very specific list of hardware. MS software engineers are probably just starting to think about a closer relationship between code and hardware, and even then I'm sure there's a fair bit of distrust within MS as to how the market will respond. Will their OEM partners call foul on MS leveraging their position? It wouldn't be th…

[deleted]

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#235

Post by kbenson » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 5:41 PM UTC

mitchty wrote: post #229

kbenson wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the fact you felt the need to put the word servers in quotes does a lot to show that you and justincormack are talking about computers serving a similar role, but with such laughably different requirements that it's obvious what point he was trying to make, and your statement, while technically correct, doesn't really change his point. You are correct though, people do use commodity and low-end hardware for e…

I put servers in quotes to denote something that serves that wasn't purpose built for the role. Nothing more, the context from justincormack wasn't lost but there are a lot of uses for osx servers, for example compile farms. What I was referring to, which I thought was apparent but failed to convey, is that this perception of nobody doing it is a fallacy.

We are saying the same thing. My post wasn't meant to contradict yours, just clarify.

> What I was referring to, which I thought was apparent but failed to convey, is that this perception of nobody doing it is a fallacy.

I just think that in this context the "nobody" you are referring to and the "nobody" he is referring to are not equal sets. Yours is a superset of his, which is why both statements are true (in spirit), while yours is true in fact.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#236

Post by Cookingboy » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 5:43 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #234

kbenson wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that Apple has many, many more years of designing their software for a very specific list of hardware. MS software engineers are probably just starting to think about a closer relationship between code and hardware, and even then I'm sure there's a fair bit of distrust within MS as to how the market will respond. Will their OEM partners call foul on MS leveraging their position? It wouldn't be th…

[deleted]

And battery life is a concern for neither of them...

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#237

Post by rcthompson » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 5:54 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…

Linux already has it sorted, at least on certain hardware. I have a 13-inch Retina MBP, and I get the same battery life with Linux and OSX on it.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#238

Post by baddox » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 6:00 PM UTC

programminggeek wrote: post #183

When you aren't creating the hardware, it is harder to care about power management in the software because that is seen as "someone else's problem". It is easy to blame things on terrible drivers or whatever, but no matter how you look at it, the product is worse as a result. This is why Microsoft needs to keep building their own hardware like the Surface. As time goes on, if Microsoft does it right, Surface is going…

It's interesting to compare this to what I have read (and experienced) about Linux vs. Windows battery life on laptops. Maybe things have changed in the last few years, but it used to be that Linux delivered far worse battery life than Windows.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#239

Post by melling » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 6:00 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #210

melling wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus, consumers don't really care. They just want the better product. "Yes, Mac's get twice the battery life but Microsoft has to support more hardware" doesn't really cut it. Sure, I appreciate it, but when it comes time to spend $2000, I simply want to know that I'm getting my money's worth.

To some people, the one that supports more hardware is the better product. Especially when they are spending $2000.

Yes, Linux is very cool in that respect. I really home Linux continues its long and relentless march.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#240

Post by mikelat » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 6:03 PM UTC

sz4kerto wrote: post #27

Windows does not have a terrible battery life. That's so simple. The difference between OSX and Windows are related to drivers. The charts are quite ridiculous in the article - comparing an Ivy Bridge, actively cooled laptop-tablet to a Nexus 7? Why? BTW, the biggest difference is maybe CPU core hotplugging, this exists in Android and iOS but does not in Windows RT.

They pick their hardware though, it's their device. You can't claim it's the drivers.

I still don't really get what they're trying to do with the surface. If I want a tablet, I can buy a nexus 7 for cheap and it's a superior tablet to the surface anyway from things that are important to tablets (battery, apps, ui etc). If I want a laptop, I can go buy a laptop and not pay for all the bells and whistles with a touch screen, odd hardware in the screen, etc.