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Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

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Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#61

Post by ekianjo »

hahainternet wrote: post #34
ekianjo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No, because it is Linux. The correct solution is to refer to a particular distribution, as many of them make significantly different decisions.

Android is not just linux. Linux is just the kernel, and everything else running on it has nothing to do with Linux and that's the majority of Android user software and interface.

It's just like saying "this human and this bacteria are the same, they have a DNA with the same chemical structure !".

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#62

Post by 3825 »

devx wrote: post #52
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…

I disagree. WP7 would've been a much better and more efficient OS for tablets, and they already built that, but in the name of keeping OS licenses for tablets at ~$100 like for notebooks, and some kind of "unification strategy" (which still hasn't been realized yet), they've also made Windows RT for tablets and WP8 out of the NT kernel for phones. But even WP8 would've be better than Windows 8 or Windows RT (which is…

I thought Windows RT existed mainly as a way for Microsoft to send a signal to Intel. Am I reading too much from Intel's involvement in Tizen[0]?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizen

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#63

Post by qznc »

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.

I think we should stop calling "all the distros" simply "Linux". There is an Ubuntu operating system and a Fedora operating system. They might short most of the code, but you cannot expect to run programs compiled for to run unmodified on the other.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#64

Post by threeseed »

barking wrote: post #39
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.

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.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#65

Post by ohwp »

In the Windows prompt (admin mode) you can use the following command to monitor (it will generate a HTML file) energy usage (for 60 seconds):

  powercfg –ENERGY
I can see some problems on my own system. For example "USB Suspend:USB Device not Entering Suspend"

Maybe misconfigurations like these are also causing more power consumption than needed.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#66

Post by threeseed »

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.

Customers generally do not want to run Windows apps on their tablet.

If they did then Surface Pro would be the number one seller.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#67

Post by SEMW »

Touche wrote: post #59
Maakuth wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might explain the case of MacBook Air, but how come they don't do something similar with Surface Pro? It is their hardware, firmware and software - everything should be possible.

A quick Google search shows many Windows laptops with equivalent or better battery life. Is your question why don't all Windows laptops have equal battery life?

> 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 find laptops with higher capacity batteries that have longer battery life doesn't prove very much.

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#68

Post by jammi »

Touche wrote: post #59
Maakuth wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might explain the case of MacBook Air, but how come they don't do something similar with Surface Pro? It is their hardware, firmware and software - everything should be possible.

A quick Google search shows many Windows laptops with equivalent or better battery life. Is your question why don't all Windows laptops have equal battery life?

How many windows laptops have you found that actually has the battery life they promise in marketing?

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#69

Post by ekianjo »

qznc wrote: post #63
ekianjo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think we should stop calling "all the distros" simply "Linux". There is an Ubuntu operating system and a Fedora operating system. They might short most of the code, but you cannot expect to run programs compiled for to run unmodified on the other.

Well, yes, but it's certainly way fairer to put Fedora and Ubuntu under the same umbrella than putting Ubuntu and Android in the same basket. GNU/Linux distros have tons of things in common, and you can often use passthrough systems to run packages from one distro on another (not that I'd recommend that).

Re: Why Does Windows Have Terrible Battery Life?

#70

Post by Maakuth »

Touche wrote: post #59
Maakuth wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might explain the case of MacBook Air, but how come they don't do something similar with Surface Pro? It is their hardware, firmware and software - everything should be possible.

A quick Google search shows many Windows laptops with equivalent or better battery life. Is your question why don't all Windows laptops have equal battery life?

Not necessarily. I'm just wondering why isn't Microsoft pulling some of the Apple tricks with Surface Pro if suspending some part of hardware really is responsible of OS X's better power economy. As others have pointed out in this discusion, some legacies of Windows architecture probably adds to its battery use.
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