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

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#111

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

paol wrote: post #100

__david__ wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you missed the part about Mac OS X (also a general purpose OS) using significantly less battery than windows on the exact same hardware. And that's not even considering OS 10.9 which is due to be released soon which has a bunch of battery life improvements (rumored to be around a 10% to 15% increase).

There's nothing general purpose about Mac OS X as far as hardware support is concerned. Just like iOS, it only has to target a very small set of hardware configurations. Edit: as pointed out elsewhere, this doesn't excuse MS from not taking advantage of the same vertical integration on their own hardware...

As far as I know they still use the Darwin kernel in iOS. Which means it scales from desktops and servers all the way down to phones... That seems pretty general purpose to me.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#112

Post by tluyben2 » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 1:23 PM UTC

bosie wrote: post #37

VLM wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The charts are quite ridiculous in the article - comparing an Ivy Bridge, actively cooled laptop-tablet to a Nexus 7? Why?" The relevant comparison was the surface pro 2, (a joke of a tablet), has a 42 Wh battery and runs a mere 6.6 hours, but the macbook 11 inch has a smaller 38 Wh battery yet runs longer at 11.1 hours very nearly twice as long.

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

Unless the Surface Pro 2 is significantly improved over the 1, which it doesn't look like it is from reading the reviews, it is a joke to be honest. Everyone keeps saying it's a 'real computer'; so why didn't you buy a laptop then? I worked on the 1 for about 2 weeks; the keyboard drove me insane as did the battery life. I didn't like how it stands up compared to a laptop and for some reason the screen wasn't as responsive to my touches as I would've expected it to be. For the price of these things I don't really see why anyone would buy one unless you have way too much money to spare on toys.

That said, I'll try the 2 as well when I can borrow it for a few weeks. I'm afraid the difference won't make me a convert though.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#113

Post by Tobu » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 1:23 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #17

wielebny wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Nexus 7 does run on Linux.

Can we stop calling Android Linux just because it shares the Linux kernel? Obviously the author was referring to a GNU/Linux distro.

Android is Linux, just not desktop Linux. A line which is blurring, with Ubuntu on phones and Android on laptops.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#114

Post by melling » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 1:23 PM UTC

paol wrote: post #100

__david__ wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you missed the part about Mac OS X (also a general purpose OS) using significantly less battery than windows on the exact same hardware. And that's not even considering OS 10.9 which is due to be released soon which has a bunch of battery life improvements (rumored to be around a 10% to 15% increase).

There's nothing general purpose about Mac OS X as far as hardware support is concerned. Just like iOS, it only has to target a very small set of hardware configurations. Edit: as pointed out elsewhere, this doesn't excuse MS from not taking advantage of the same vertical integration on their own hardware...

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.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#115

Post by Nikker » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 1:23 PM UTC

__david__ wrote: post #109

Nikker wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Those are mainly cosmetic changes. The other 99% was a whole new OS.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#116

Post by gnaffle » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 1:23 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…

That might be true, but doesn't the whole "vertical integration" argument get thrown out the window when he describes the problem on Microsofts own hardware, the Surface Pro?

Certainly Microsoft should have the ability or money to optimize those drivers for maximum battery efficiency.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#117

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 1:24 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…

[deleted]

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#118

Post by wbond » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 1:26 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…

I would presume with the Surface Pro Microsoft would be involved in, or at least work with hardware manufacturers to write the drivers. The integration is the same as Apple has on OS X. Microsoft is involved with the hardware, the OS and the app (IE), right?

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#119

Post by 4rt » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 1:27 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #78

sz4kerto wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are we comparing different hardware or operating systems? Surface 2 Pro and a Macbook Air are completely different: - different screen resolution - one of them has touchscreen, other doesn't - different keyboards (might matter a lot) .. and so on. The MBA is clearly better, but that does not tell too much about whether Windows is inherently bad at power management or not.

Right right that's why the article specifically mentioned plain ole web surfing over wifi. Umm... I don't think keyboards draw as much power as you might think.

higher resolutions screens certainly do though

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#120

Post by outworlder » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 1:29 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...

The problem with Server Core begins at the description:

> "Server Core is a minimal server installation option for computers running on the operating system. Server Core provides a low-maintenance server environment with limited functionality."

Limited functionality is the key. In order to administer windows server, one is expected to use remote desktop. This is in contrast to a unix machine, where everything can be controlled via command line and configuration scripts.

It is getting better, as Powershell exposes a lot of functionality. But it is still not there yet.