Battery life better with Windows 7 vs Windows XP
Update: I've confirmed that Windows XP does perform better than Windows 7. I made a mistake in my testing and should have ran the tests a few different ways before publishing my findings. I won't be so careless next time.
I currently own an Asus Eee PC 1008HA and yesterday (much to my delight) I received a more powerful Asus Eee PC 1008HA. This machine packs a larger 320 GB hard drive (vs 160 GB) and 2 GB of RAM instead of 1 GB of RAM, 500 GB of online storage and Windows 7 Home Premium. The specific model is now shipping for $464
Windows 7 Powered Asus Eee PC 1008HA:
Brightness: Full
Wireless Lan: ON
Bluetooth: ON
Super Performance Mode
Total Battery Run Time: 6 hours 7 minutes and 30 seconds
vs
Windows XP powered Asus Eee PC 1008HA:
Brightness: Full
Wireless Lan: ON
Bluetooth: ON
Super Performance Mode
Total Battery Run Time: 5 hours 3 minutes and 18 seconds
The Windows 7 powered Asus Eee PC 1008HA ran for an additional 1 hour 4 minutes and 12 seconds over the Windows XP powered Asus Eee PC 1008HA! I knew that Windows 7 was good, but it's still hard to believe that the Windows 7 powered netbook ran that much longer than the Windows XP powered netbook. Then again, we are talking about a brand new OS vs an 8 year old OS. I'll run another test to confirm the results, but in the meantime if you were trying to decide between buying the new model at $464
Update: There have been a few concerns highlighted in the comments over the way I performed the test. So please note that I will be redoing the test and updating this post with results after I install a retail copy of Windows 7 Home Premium on the second partition on my Windows XP powered Asus Eee PC 1008HA. By doing this I will be performing the test on the exact same hardware with the exact same battery so the results are not skewed by a worn battery.
Tagged: Battery Life, Windows 7, Windows XP
Got something to say? Click here to reply
[...] one good reason why you should upgrade your netbook’s Windows XP to Windows 7. Netbook News was able to compare the battery performance of two Eee PC 1008HA, one running Windows XP and the [...]
[...] Netbook news har gjort en jämförelse mellan en Asus Eee PC 1008HA som kör Windows XP och en som kör Windows 7. Förutom att datorn med Windows 7 var snabbare så ökade batteritiden med över 1 timme! [...]
[...] more about the results of the test over at NetbookReviews.com. AKPC_IDS += [...]
Did you test two different netbooks with two different batteries? If so, you may have simply measured the differences between the two batteries.
You should test using the SAME battery on each PC.
Hi,
great test!
Do you have the Battery Eater report graphs? Can you public them?
[...] netbookreviews – [...]
Interesting but flawed.
You can’t compare a brandnew netbook with a fresh 100% battery, with an older netbook with a somewhat worn battery.
Did you never noticed that over time, a battery never holds it’s charge as well as it once did?
Hey Riccardo,
No unfortunately I do not, but I am going to run the test again and repost if it changes.
Hey Simon,
The 1008HA was only used for a very brief period of time. I purchased it back when I was having trouble getting in touch with manufacturers to send me demo units. So while your point is valid I never really used the netbook more than 5 or 6 charge ups which should have as large of an influence as I’ve noted in the test above. (But you’re right I should have mentioned that in the test though)
I have the EEEPC 1005. Asus has 3 models of 1005 that has battery life of 4 hours, 8.5 hours, and 10.5 hours. It’s hidden in the suffix, for US models they are HA-E, HA-V, HA-P. And the suffix for international models are different again.
Without first checking if these 1008HAs have the same suffix, or dig deeply into some Asus well hidden information you may not be comparing the Apple to Apple. To make sure you are doing the correct comparison you need to look at the mAh value of battery of both computers to make sure they are the same.
If you truly get that much more battery life with the same type of battery I think I will upgrade my 1005 to Windows 7.
Thanks,
Andrew
i have both seven and xp in my netbook. Haven’t done test yet but i fell that seven is giving the same or less battery time. gonna run battery eater.
Hey Chris,
But did you realize when you are comparing these netbooks’ battery life, one battery was new and one was old and what i mean is difference between battery lives can be resulted from the batteries themself.
The best way to look at the test is that it appears Windows 7 will provide a better battery life than a Windows XP powered netbook. As I mentioned in an earlier comment I hardly used my Win XP powered 1008HA other than for a few video reviews.
Chris:
I don’t think you’re hearing what everyone is telling you. Your test is invalid because you used two different batteries to do the test. Even though you THINK the batteries should be the same; they may not be. And insiting that they SHOULD be the same will only give people ammunition to question your results.
A fundamental principle of comparison tests is that you should only change ONE variable to be sure that you draw the right conclusions. Here are suggested ways to test, from best to worst:
1. Install XP and Win 7 to the same netbook with the same battery and the same power management settings on each OS.
2. Install XP and Win 7 to two identical netbooks but use the same battery for each of the tests.
3. The way you conducted the test.
Mark,
You’re right. Technically they aren’t the same battery even though they are the exact same specs but because physically they are two different batteries. My point was that they are the same battery and I had hardly used my Win XP powered Asus Eee PC 1008HA so the results should not be that skewed. (operative word being skewed in that last sentence).
To comment on your ways to test – I have a friend that works at Microsoft and he’s going to be getting me a retail copy of Windows 7 and I’ll install it on the other partition of my Windows XP powered netbook and redo the test so that it’s done on the exact SAME netbook.
I will update the post with future results when I have them.
Great, installing Windows 7 on another partition of the same machine where you already have XP would be the fairest test.
Thanks for doing this, it would be helpful to a lot of people that could potential buy a Windows 7 upgrade instead of buying a new machine.
You can kick and scream about the test all you want. The fact is that Anandtech, a large hardware website which has a huge amount of resources for this kind of thing, has already done the tests and confirmed that Windows 7 smears Windows XP when it comes to battery life. Actually, Vista is battery life as well – shame it was always too much of a hog to run on netbooks.
For some reason, people are really defensive of Windows XP. It is an odd response. But you can only twist the facts so much. Fact is, Windows 7 is better. End of story.
” But you can only twist the facts so much. Fact is, Windows 7 is better. End of story.”
Wow. The whole point of Netbook News testing this stuff is to find the facts. You seem to have made up YOUR mind already. Maybe let Chris find out for himself, rather than try to dismiss his efforts? Sounds like someone is really defensive of Windows 7. Its an odd response.
it looks like Brad from Lilliputing thinks that the test is flawed. Just read this write-up that says Windows 7 is not better for battery life.
http://www.liliputing.com/2009/10/windows-7-netbooks-lower-battery-life.html
Hey Netbook Reviews,
I just replied in the comments on his post. I am going to redo the test once I have a retail copy of Windows 7 in my hands to install on my second hard drive partition.
The old version of Eee PC 1008HA has an Atom N270 processor while the new version comes with an Atom N280 which is more energy efficient.
[...] según algunos expertos. Muchos expresan que Windows XP es mejor que Windows 7 en esto, otros aseguran que Windows 7 si rinde mucho [...]