Internet Battery Life, Round 2
We were a bit concerned with some of the Internet battery life results, so we decided to retest all of the systems using different websites. We felt that variance in the content of the webpages we used originally, even with repeated testing, might have skewed some of the results, so we switched to websites that present content more consistently. This time, we selected Yahoo!, MSN, the main YouTube page (no videos actually playing), and the Facebook login page (representing a simple web page, though logging in on Facebook makes it a lot more complex). The Yahoo! page is active while the other three are in tabs and their content is not visible. Here are the results for both systems.
[Drum roll…]
Okay, we're not finished yet, since we're still running some of these tests on the laptops. We'll update this page as we complete additional tests, so check back during the week. You can see what we mean when we say the results were inconsistent, however, as the placement of certain OSes is very different from our original Internet tests. On the NV52, all of the Balanced battery results are a lot closer to the Power Saver results this time, with the largest difference coming in Windows 7 at 9%. That isn't entirely out of sync with what we would expect, since Flash content may result in the CPU running at higher speeds without the limits imposed by Power Saver. However, Windows 7 suddenly drops to the back of the pack and we again have to question the results. [Queue yet another retest.] Ubuntu still shows a 27% boost in battery life by using FlashBlock, but that's less than the 44% boost shown originally. That makes sense, considering we aren't using sites with nearly as much Flash content. We will update the charts with Vista + Firefox results later this week and rerun the Windows 7 tests just to be safe.
The NV58 results aren't any better at clearing things up, since this time Windows 7 has a huge lead in its Power Saver result but trails by a significant amount in the Balanced test. So despite using sites that appear to be more consistent at first blush, we're afraid that there's still variability and we need to run more tests. Another interesting aspect is that Ubuntu hardly shows any difference between Firefox and Firefox + FlashBlock on the NV52, garnering a scant 5% increase in battery life. At least XP and Vista generate relatively consistent results, which is more in line with what we would expect. Of course, expectations are frequently wrong, which brings us to round three….
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JarredWalton - Monday, September 21, 2009 - link
Links please? I'm not a Linux guru by any stretch of the imagination, so if there's a "better" Linux option out there for testing I'm willing to give it a look. Ideally, I need something similar for the AMD platform.prince34 - Monday, September 21, 2009 - link
You could always look a UNR(Ubuntu Netbook Remix) as a netbook distro. It's what I use on mine. I've done some comparisons to XP on it, and it seems to follow the trends you are seeing, but not with as much disparity.http://www.ubuntu.com/GetUbuntu/download-netbook">http://www.ubuntu.com/GetUbuntu/download-netbook
smitty3268 - Monday, September 21, 2009 - link
I'm not sure Moblin is really a "mainstream" linux option at this point, it's more of an Intel "look at what we can do on netbooks" research project. It does supposedly have 5 second boot times. I suspect your tests here are almost completely dependent on the browser and Flash anyway, and the video drivers. All areas that Linux does not excel at - battery and performance testing of Linux + Apache or file serving would no doubt be much better.http://moblin.org/downloads">http://moblin.org/downloads, if you really want to try it.
smitty3268 - Monday, September 21, 2009 - link
Or the LiveCD version: http://moblin.org/documentation/test-drive-moblin">http://moblin.org/documentation/test-drive-moblinsmitty3268 - Monday, September 21, 2009 - link
Firefox for Linux is well known to be terribly slow and unoptimized compared to the Windows version. It would be interesting to see the battery results from running the Windows version through WINE on Ubuntu, just to see how that compares - I know it blows the Linux native version away as far as javascript performance is concerned, and I'm sure Flash is the same. You could also try Chrome, since I've heard it works quite fast, even though it's still in beta.Chlorus - Monday, September 21, 2009 - link
But how could that happen? I thought Linux was the most awesome OS ever? All the people on slashdot said so! Are you saying they lied? M$ SHILL!!!smitty3268 - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
If you read what I was saying, it doesn't have anything to do with linux, it's a Firefox problem. They've got performance bug reports that say, "fixed, for windows. we could do this for linux but not worth the effort." They don't even enable profiled compilation, which is good for a 10-15% boost on windows.smitty3268 - Monday, September 21, 2009 - link
Also, Ubuntu 9.04 (and other distros released last spring) had a terrible, terrible regression with Intel video driver performance. I'm not sure how much that really affects battery life, but it definitely could. Something to keep in mind, anyway, as you compare the differences between the two laptops.andrewaggb - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
It's true about the intel driver, but let's be honest, if it wasn't the graphics driver it'd be pulse audio, or using 64 bit instead of 32 bit firefox, ext4 whatever... Seems linux get's alot of excuses for it's problems.I'm pretty tired of ubuntu and fedora. Releasing half-finished, barely tested, OS's to the masses is not doing linux a favour, but as the answer to everything is it's fixed in svn... you're kinda stuck.
JarredWalton - Monday, September 21, 2009 - link
I followed a guide on fixing Intel GPU performance in Ubuntu... I don't know if it really worked or not, but here's the reference:http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1130582">Jaunty with Intel Performance Guide. I stayed with the default kernel and the "Safe" configuration, which may be partly to blame for suboptimal results. Then again, the ATI platform fared worse under Jaunty.