(7 votes, average: 4.86 out of 5)
Loading ...Someone just sent me an advert alleging 12 hours of PC battery life (nine cells), promising “all day computing”. It reminds me of one of the questions I am getting on the battery life conversation.
It goes something like this: “MobileMark®07 is the one everyone uses and it shows how long the battery will last at idle. I understand that’s not the battery life I’ll experience when actually using the system, but isn’t it useful to show how long it will stay on?”
Is that how we want to show a PC’s battery life – while it is effectively doing nothing? It does allow you to say, “Hey, if I do nothing with it, it will last all day!”
But that’s as useful as the answer to these questions:
- How long does your cell phone last if you never make a call?
- How much memory do you need on a DVR if you never record anything?
- How many messages can I get on my answer-phone if no one calls?
- How much music can my iPod hold if I don’t download anything?
- How many miles to the gallon do you get when your car is sitting in your driveway?
Answer: It really doesn’t matter.
Isn’t the point of a phone to make and receive calls, a DVR to record TV and a car to get you places? Surely the point of a PC is to do some, well, personal computing.
What do we call a PC that does nothing all day? A battery soak. (Guess that’s not as sexy.)
That’s why we have suggested two battery metrics: active and resting (or idle). Next time I buy a PC this is what I would like to see:
Wouldn’t that be a more helpful guide?
Nigel Dessau is senior vice president and chief marketing officer at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links sites and no endorsement is implied.
#1 by AudiGuyy - April 8th, 2009 at 11:15
Spot on mate, spot on!!!
#2 by Nate Supplee - April 8th, 2009 at 12:34
Good points Nigel. It is totally pointless how long your laptop can sit idle… if it is idle, it may as well be in sleep mode or off (thus not draining a battery).
#3 by Cliff Forster - April 8th, 2009 at 14:07
Readers,
Please head over to Icrontic.com to assist the community in challenging the current battery benchmarking process.
Its quick, painless and requires zero registration. If you decide to register and join the active brainstorm we would be honored.
Thanks for your time,
http://icrontic.com/news/what-kind-of-laptop-user-are-you
#4 by wpeltola - April 8th, 2009 at 14:56
Seconded! This is a great read!!
#5 by Mark Cathcart - April 8th, 2009 at 14:12
What do we call a PC that does nothing all day?
an environmental disaster, for the energy it consumes doing nothing, the energy consumed making it, the raw materials used in its construction, and the landfill space used when scrapping it or energy used in deconstructing it and recycling it.
This is what comes from a race to the bottom to be the lowest COST provider, much more important to FOCUS on value…
#6 by wpeltola - April 8th, 2009 at 15:03
“a battery soak” .. I love it
You’re right though!
I’d love to try sitting at one of those laptops and see how long the battery it lasts with me playing Left for Dead until it croaks. On the other hand, perhaps if it sat idle for hours on end in suspend, it may last all day.
It all goes back to having better standards and practices, something that is being worked on. Nice post Nigel!
#7 by ir0×0r - April 8th, 2009 at 16:06
How about we create a list of all the customer support/sales support email addresses for laptop manufacturers and start sending them some mail.
It’s great that we all agree idle battery life numbers are pointless but until we at least try to take some action to get things changed, we’re just preaching to the choir.
Nigel, the logo you have created is absolutely elegant. Simple, scalable and unobtrusive. Would it be possible for you to create an email template for us?
Think of it as a petition that we can all sign and send in to laptop manufacturers and resellers. It should contain the basic explanation of what you’ve been saying, a couple links to relevant blogs/forums and a link to you suggested logo.
I’ll go start collecting the appropriate email addresses and make them available on my site and freely available for anyone else to use on their site.
If they don’t want to come to the community, the community will come to them.
#8 by LS - April 8th, 2009 at 23:14
The cellular phones are all instant-on devices. In the near future, laptops will be instant-on. The idle time/standby time makes sense when instant-on comes true in the laptops.
#9 by Nigel Dessau - April 9th, 2009 at 07:44
Don’t understand what the revelance of instant on. Question is – does it have a battery? yes.
#10 by LS - April 9th, 2009 at 20:41
Yes. I totally agree of what your suggested: active/idle(standby) metrics. They are the simplest and most important statistics in laptop battery time.
#11 by sharikou - September 13th, 2009 at 00:29
When I read about Active/Resting battery lifes, I wondered what gimmick AMD is playing here. Then I found it’s just using two benchmarks. AMD should make it clearer. When I first read “Resting”, I thought it was standby time. But after quite a bit of research, I found it’s actually the BAPCO MM07 time.
I suggest AMD to abandon the “resting” time, but choose something like “Web Surfacing Time”