Posts tagged with battery life
Battery Life Advertising Getting More Confusing and Pervasive
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 2:19 PM
(8 votes, average: 3.88 out of 5)
Loading ...Last week I wrote a blog covering the different ways notebook battery life is being advertised in North America for the back-to-school season in what are called the “Sunday Circulars”. I dug into the last two weeks and found some interesting changes that occurred. Specifically there were changes and additions to battery life verbiage I think you will find interesting. Let’s start with the key observations.
Observations
- 23% increase over the prior two weeks in the number of SKUs advertised with battery life. (34 to 42 SKUs) 23 SKUs I observed advertised battery life or inference to it during the week of 8/10/09, and 19 the week of 8/17/09. (See raw data at very end of blog.)
- 2X increase in the number of ways battery life is being advertised.
- Four different ways observed from weeks of 7/27 and 8/3:
- “up to X hours, Y minutes”
- “up to X hours” (no minutes)
- “X+ hours” (no “up to”)
- “X cell battery for longer performance” (adds concept of battery cell)
- Five NEW ways battery life was described or inferred to the consumer weeks of 8/10 and 8/17 in addition to those listed above:
- “up to X hours of battery life that will last in class all day” (adds idea of all day computing)
- “X cell battery” (no information on what this means)
- “X cell battery will give you up to X hours of battery life”
- “X cell Li-ion battery” (no battery life claim and introduces battery type)
- Graphic with icons, small description, but no data.
- Four different ways observed from weeks of 7/27 and 8/3:
- Still in these advertisements there is still only one battery life measurement being advertised. This is like buying a car and only seeing the “up to 52 MPG,” even though you would never realize that gas mileage in city driving. Also, it’s like advertising battery life for a mobile phone and only listing “up to 300 hours battery life”. (See raw data at very end of blog.)
- Apple notebooks never list battery life, only Windows-based PCs.
- Two retailers provided disclaimers for the advertised battery life information. (See raw data at very end of blog.)
Conclusion
Net-net, more notebooks are advertising battery life or inferring it, and the different ways of describing it to the consumer has more than doubled. Some questions:
- Do nine different ways to describe battery life help set clear battery life expectations? I will let you be the judge.
- Do disclaimers or explanations behind the metric help increase awareness? Do they deserve broader application? I will let you be the judge.
- Does one single measurement of battery life help tell the whole story? I will let you be the judge.
If you would like to read more about the battery life discussion, please find the links below:
Nigel Dessau’s blogs on battery life
Pat Moorhead’s (me) blogs on battery life
FriendFeed page with select press articles
Improving Understanding of Notebook PC Battery Life Measurements
Let me know what you think!
NOTES:
Week of 8-10-09
|
Retailer |
Notebook Battery Life Listed? |
# Models (SKUs)with Battery Life Listed and Verbiage |
Battery Life Disclaimer |
|
A |
Yes |
7 SKUs-” up to X hours, mins” 2 SKUs-“up to X hours” | “Battery life tested using MobileMark 2007. Battery life will vary depending on the product configuration, product model, applications loaded on the product; power management setting of the product, and the product features used by the customer. As with all batteries, the maximum capacity of this battery will decrease with time and usage.” |
|
B |
No |
None | None |
|
C |
Inferred |
1 SKU- “X cell battery” | None |
|
D |
No |
None | None |
|
E |
Yes |
6 SKU-”up to X hours, mins” | “Battery life will vary depending on the product configuration, product model, applications loaded on the product; power management setting of the product, and the product features used by the customer. As with all batteries, the maximum capacity of this battery will decrease with time and usage.” |
|
F |
Inferred |
1 SKU- “X cell battery for longer performance” | None |
|
G |
No |
None | None |
|
H |
Yes |
5 SKUs-“up to X hours”1 SKU- “X cell battery will give you up to X hours” | None |
|
I |
No |
None | None |
Week of 8-17-09
|
Retailer |
Notebook Battery Life Listed? |
# Models (SKUs)with Battery Life Listed and Verbiage |
Battery Life Disclaimer |
|
A |
Yes |
7 SKUs-” up to X hours, mins”1 SKU-“up to X hours” | “Battery life tested using MobileMark 2007. Battery life will vary depending on the product configuration, product model, applications loaded on the product; power management setting of the product, and the product features used by the customer. As with all batteries, the maximum capacity of this battery will decrease with time and usage.” |
|
B |
No |
None | None |
|
C |
Inferred |
1 SKU- “x-cell battery”1 SKU- “x-cell Li-ion battery” | None |
|
D |
Yes |
4 SKUs-”up to X hours, mins”1 SKU-”up to X hours” | “Battery life will vary depending on the product configuration, product model, applications loaded on the product; power management setting of the product, and the product features used by the customer. As with all batteries, the maximum capacity of this battery will decrease with time and usage.” |
|
E |
Inferred |
1 SKU- “X-cell battery for longer performance” | None |
|
F |
Yes |
3 SKUs-“up to X hours” | None |
Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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 linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
Back To School Battery Life Follies
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 11:08 AM
For the last 15 years, I have routinely browsed the aisles of electronics stores and their circulars looking for cool technology, and to see how devices are marketed and merchandised. I was away from the office the last few weeks and got a chance to dig deep into North American back-to-school “Sunday Circulars,” where each retailer lists deals and special offers of the week. I took a close look how notebook battery life was explained in the circulars. What I found was interesting……
Week of 7-27-2009
|
Retailer |
Notebook Battery Life Listed? |
# Models (SKUs) with Battery Life Listed and Verbiage |
Battery Life Disclaimer |
|
A |
Yes |
7 SKUs- “up to X hours, mins” | “Battery life tested using MobileMark 2007. Battery life will vary depending on the product configuration, product model, applications loaded on the product; power management setting of the product, and the product features used by the customer. As with all batteries, the maximum capacity of this battery will decrease with time and usage.” |
|
B |
No |
None | None |
|
C |
No |
None | None |
|
D |
No |
None | None |
|
E |
Yes |
5 SKUs- “up to X hours, mins” | None |
|
F |
Inferred |
1 SKU- “X cell battery for longer performance” | None |
|
G |
Inferred |
1 SKU-“X cell lithium ion battery” | None |
Week of 8-3-2009
|
Retailer |
Notebook Battery Life Listed? |
# Models (SKUs)with Battery Life Listed and Verbiage |
Battery Life Disclaimer |
|
A |
Yes |
8 SKUs-” up to X hours, mins” | “Battery life tested using MobileMark 2007. Battery life will vary depending on the product configuration, product model, applications loaded on the product; power management setting of the product, and the product features used by the customer. As with all batteries, the maximum capacity of this battery will decrease with time and usage.” |
|
B |
No |
None | None |
|
C |
Yes |
1 SKU-”X+ hours battery life” | None |
|
D |
Yes |
5 SKU-“up to X hours, mins” | “Battery life will vary depending on the product configuration, product model, applications loaded on the product; power management setting of the product, and the product features used by the customer. As with all batteries, the maximum capacity of this battery will decrease with time and usage.” |
|
E |
Yes |
1 SKU-”up to X hours” | None |
|
F |
No |
None | None |
|
G |
Yes |
4 SKUs-“up to X hours” | None |
|
H |
Yes |
1 SKU-”X+ hours on one battery charge” | None |
Observations
- 14 notebook SKUs I observed advertised battery life during the week of 7/27/09, and 20 SKUs I observed advertised battery life during the week of 8/3/09.
- In these advertisements there is still only one battery life measurement being advertised. This is like buying a car and only seeing the “up to 52 MPG,” even though you would never realize that gas mileage in city driving. Also, it’s like advertising battery life for a mobile phone and only listing “up to 300 hours battery life”.
- Battery life as I observed it is being advertised four different ways:
- “up to X hours, Y minutes”
- “up to X hours” (no minutes)
- “X+ hours” (no “up to”)
- “X cell battery life for longer performance”
- Only two retailers out of eight I observed provided disclaimers for the advertised battery life information.
During the holiday time frame, we hope and expect this situation to change. A few retailers have unofficially indicated that they are planning to adopt a “Min and Max” (aka guardrail approach) to notebook battery life communications. Based on the lack of consistency I observed in the circulars, I expect this will be a very welcome change for consumers.
Above is a sample graphic that AMD has proposed for this guardrail approach.
If you would like to read more about the battery life discussion, please find the links below:
Nigel Dessau’s blogs on battery life
Pat Moorhead’s (me) blogs on battery life
FriendFeed page with select press articles
Improving Understanding of Notebook PC Battery Life Measurements
Let me know what you think!
Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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 linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
Kudos to iPhone 3GS on Battery Life Disclosure
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 2:02 PM
The new iPhone 3GS is capturing the attention of press, bloggers, and most importantly, consumers. While I get my work jollies from my BlackBerry Bold and portable PMP fun from my iPod Touch, I also must give the iPhone 3GS credit in one dimension that’s not getting a lot of attention: consumer battery life information. I have thought for a while that cellphones and smartphones are marketed with better battery life information than notebook computers, despite the price premium notebooks command, and the iPhone 3GS demonstrates this once again.
Main iPhone Information Page
When consumers navigate to the main iPhone page, about ¾ of the page down you see a link that says, “iPhone 3GS or Iphone 3G: Compare”.
Compare iPhones Page
Click this and you go to a comparison page of the iPhone 3G versus iPhone 3GS. About ¾ down the page, you see a battery life comparison:
|
iPhone 3GS |
iPhone 3G |
|
|
Talk time: |
Up to 5 hours on 3G; |
Up to 5 hours on 3G; |
|
up to 12 hours on 2G |
up to 10 hours on 2G |
|
|
Standby time: |
Up to 300 hours |
Up to 300 hours |
|
Internet use: |
Up to 5 hours on 3G; |
Up to 5 hours on 3G; |
|
up to 9 hours on Wi-Fi |
up to 6 hours on Wi-Fi |
|
|
Audio playback: |
Up to 30 hours |
Up to 24 hours |
|
Video playback: |
Up to 10 hours |
Up to 7 hours |
These seems like intuitive figures to provide a consumer, yet Apple is already operating in rarefied air in providing this much consumer information. But wait, what about the details on what was tested, you ask? Apple iPhone delivers, again. When you click on the disclaimer (3) you are brought down to a line that says, “3) All battery claims depend on network configuration and many other factors; actual results will vary. For more details of iPhone performance tests for talk time, standby time, Internet use over 3G, Internet use over Wi-Fi, video playback, and audio playback, see www.apple.com/iphone/battery.html.”
Full Battery Life Performance Testing Disclosure Page
Click on the link in the disclaimer above and you are brought to a page that contains more battery life procedure testing than I have ever seen before. These 1,173 words of technical bliss scream detail. Sure, someone could chose to pick at the way the testing was done, but you cannot complain about the detailed disclosure. The page meticulously goes through the tests performed, the hardware used, and how it was done.
Who Cares?
We have made it very public and clear that AMD is striving to guide the PC industry to deliver better notebook PC battery life information for consumers. Nigel and I have articulated the challenges and provided suggestions to this. We expect some in the industry to adopt these, but some will sit on the sidelines. To those who choose to sit I ask, how do you feel about better battery life information being disclosed on a $99 iPhone than a $799 notebook PC? Industry, we can do better than the cell phone industry.
Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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 linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
MobileMark 2007, the Apps, and your Notebook
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 11:08 AM
Last week I presented you with some facts, thoughts and opinions about notebook screen brightness settings required in the industry’s de-facto standard battery life benchmark, MobileMark 2007 (MM07). Now I would like to explore how closely MM07’s application selection and activity distribution reflects consumer usage and purchase patterns. Like that last blog, I will provide you the facts and let you decide.
As a reminder, MobileMark 2007 is now being advertised and merchandised in retail circulars across the US. This benchmark is developed by the Business Applications Performance Corporation (BAPCO). (More background and our suggestions for more accurate battery life metrics can be found here, here, and here.)
Applications in MMO7 compared to consumer use
In my opinion, it is not credible to construct a consumer benchmark consisting primarily of applications that business people use. To demonstrate my point, take a look at the battery life benchmark applications now being used in consumer adverts.
These benchmarked applications inside MM07 include: Microsoft Project 2003 for project management, Microsoft Excel 2003 for calculation sheets, Microsoft Outlook 2003 for email, calendar and scheduling, Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 for presentations, Microsoft Word 2003 for word processing, WinZip Computing WinZip 10.0 for archive compression, Adobe Photoshop CS2 for manipulating and compressing images, Adobe Illustrator CS2 for manipulating images and Adobe Flash 8 for vector graphics and animation.
Do these look like your most commonly used consumer PC applications to you? Here’s my personal list of most commonly used consumer applications as a starting point:
- Web browsers like Firefox, Safari, and Chrome or Internet Explorer. And with browsers come Google, Gmail, YouTube, Hulu, ESPN.com, Disney.com, etc.
- Music apps like iTunes or Windows Media player
- Video or movie playback for DVDs, Blu-ray or iTunes movies or TV shows
- Games like Spore, Sims, and Worlds of Warcraft
Like I said, you be the judge.
Application % weightings in MM07 compared to usage patterns
Even if we pretend for a moment that consumers don’t use web browsers, listen to music, watch videos or play games, and they primarily use the listed MM07 apps. Surely someone on the planet does that, right?
BAPCO has published MM07’s “distribution of measured application task times“, or in other words the apps the tested notebook was running 5-10% of the time when it wasn’t idling or resting 95-90% of the time.
Inside MM07, The “measured application task times” for Adobe Flash Creation is 33.6%, Adobe Photoshop CS2 is 21.8%, Adobe Illustrator CS2 is 16.7%, Microsoft Excel is 16.6%, WinZip 10.0 is 7.1%, Microsoft Word is 1.1%, Microsoft PowerPoint is 1.0%, Microsoft Project is 1.2% and Microsoft Outlook is 1.0%.
I ask, when you use your notebook, do you spend 72% of your time recoding Flash videos, manipulating and compressing pictures in Photoshop and Illustrator? I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that that is not an accurate reflection of most of our usage profiles!
MM07 Applications compared to retail notebook software loads
One final aspect I would like to examine is the software preloaded on retail notebooks compared to the MM07 load. I also looked up the potential costs associated with a consumer adopting the MM07 software load if they bought it on their own.
I took what looked like popular notebooks and those which advertised battery life and compared their software load with MM07’s software load. I looked at five notebooks advertised in major Sunday circulars last weekend and here is what I found.
|
SKU #1 |
SKU #2 |
SKU #3 |
SKU #4 |
SKU #5 |
|
|
Price |
$399.99 |
$549.99 |
$649.99 |
$799.99 |
$599.99 |
|
MS Project 2003 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
MS Excel 2003 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
MS Outlook 2003 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
MS Powerpoint 2003 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
MS Word 2003 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
Winzip Pro 10.1 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
Adobe Photoshop CS2 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
Adobe Illustrator CS2 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
Adobe Flash 8 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
Granted this is a pretty limited sample, but as you can see above, there was 0% correlation between the MM07 software load and what is installed on these notebooks. Note: SKUs #1 and #2 did have a 60 day edition of MS Office Pro(1). SKUs #3, 4, and 5 came with 60 day edition of MS Office Student Edition(2). Close but no cigar.
I then looked at what it would cost a consumer to buy the latest and greatest MM07 updated apps. Here is what it could cost at retail:
|
$419.99 |
|
|
MS Professional 2007 |
$363.99 |
|
$657.49 |
|
|
$533.49 |
|
|
$669.99 |
|
|
$56.99 |
|
|
$2,701 |
As you can see above, it would cost the consumer approximately $2,701 at retail to load all of the updated MM07 applications.
Conclusion
My goal was to compare MobileMark 2007 (MM07) application selection and activity distribution and compare that to a consumer’s behavior. I showed the following:
1) MM07 Productivity is utilized in consumer facing advertisements to indicate comparative notebook battery life.
2) MM07 Productivity tested applications do not contain a single web browser, music app, video playback app, or game.
3) 72% of MM07’s application usage comes from Flash video encoding and photo manipulation and compression in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.
4) MM07 tested applications have a 0% correlation between what is pre-loaded on retail notebooks and are six years old on average. (Yes, I admit it was a small sample, but you get my point…)
5) If a user bought software representing the MM07 test suite, it could cost $2,701 at retail.
I ask you, do MM07 applications represent real world consumer usage behavior and purchase characteristics? You be the judge.
Notes:
(1) loaded w/MS Works (word processor, spreadsheet, calendar) & 60-day trial of MS Office Pro2007 (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, Access, Publisher)
(2) loaded w/MS Works (word processor, spreadsheet, calendar) & 60-day trial of MS Office 2007 Home & Student Edition (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OneNote)
Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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 linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
MobileMark 2007, 60 nits, One Nit-Picker and You
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 3:19 PM
As we have already discussed here, here, and here, the current de-facto standard to measure notebook battery life in consumer marketing materials is MobileMark ® 2007 (MMO7). One thing I want to help educate on are the basic facts behind the notebook brightness settings recommended by MM07 and compare that to my home electronics and what settings others are using for their notebook displays.
The facts about MM07 and notebook display brightness
MM07 requires the following (1): “The display brightness should be measured for a white screen while on battery and be set at the lowest possible setting, no lower than 60 nits.” One needs a nit meter and yes, we have a few of those in our labs. :-)
So what is a nit? Wkipedia defines a nit as a “candela per square meter.” Yes, that really helped me too. Think of a “nit” as a unit of measure of brightness.
How does 60 nits compare to brightness of other home electronics?
I pretend to be a technically-capable business, strategy and marketing guy, which according to the engineers, makes me REAL dangerous. You see, 95% is good enough for my trade, but for theirs, its 99.999% and I respect that.
So I wanted to know what 60 nits really related to, as I didn’t know nits from nuts. You should have seen the look on the engineer’s faces when I asked them to borrow their nit meter. Chad, his real name J, showed me how to use the nit meter and instructed me how to use the nit meter and to make sure to have a white background on all devices.
I literally went around my house testing many of my home electronics and tested them without changing any settings outside shutting off “auto adjustment” on the phones which I am told is best practice. I suppose I can call this my family’s “comfort setting” based on the setting my family and I actually use the devices. So there is variation in room setting, light, etc. that dictates this.
Here are the test results:
Net-net, the lowest nit measurement I observed with my “comfort setting” was still 2.58X brighter than the MM07 brightness level of 60 nits on which notebook battery life is measured.
I then wanted to see how nits related to notebook screen brightness. So I tested a few notebooks I had in my office to see what the “max nits” were when the screen was set to the highest setting.
As you can see from the figures above, the MM07 requirement was between 20-30% of the samples notebooks’ max screen brightness.
What notebook display brightness setting do consumers use?
Now, I know that a sample set of one doesn’t represent anything, and I’m far from normal, as my friends frequently tell me, but the results of my home survey were interesting – interesting enough to make me real curious about what others are doing with their screen brightness settings.
So last week I started Tweeting and Facebooking questions to real users on what is the display brightness setting on which they place their notebooks. I received qualitative and quantitative responses. Yes, I know, this isn’t a 17-country, global discrete choice, double blind methodology survey followed by focus groups, BUT there were telling, directional indicators.
Quantitative: I wasn’t expecting anything like the response I got from Neowin respondents. They actually placed a poll on their community website asking the question, “What brightness level do you run your notebook?“ Over 1,100 community members voted in a few days, and according to Shane Pitman, Editor-in-Chief, “Polls require a member account, and to be logged in to said account. Provides accountability, keeps people from voting multiple times.”
The results were overwhelming in that 75% of the Neowin community member respondents kept their notebook display brightness between 61% and 100%. Somehow, I don’t think that fits into the 60 nit range. 
Qualitative: These responses were as valuable as the quantitative as they gave insight into “why” they did this. Some comments gave insight into the folks who use their notebooks at very low display settings. I didn’t use their Twitter names to protect the innocent. :-)
Here was the response to my question, improper grammar and all, “Research question: what display brightness do you run your notebook at? (Please RT)”. Here is just a sampling of public tweet responses.
- “On the machines I see, normally I prefer to have them fully backlit with the slider up to around 75% or so.”
- “I run my laptop at maximum brightness unless the battery is really low, or I have an external screen. “
- “Now running MBP 15.4″ 3.1 at 75% brightness with auto adjust turned ; but was at 100% without auto adjust til you asked! “
- “90 – 100% brightness, 90% of the time. “
- “depends entirely on my battery level and surroundings. “
- “Research question: what display brightness do you run your notebook at? (Please RT). I run full bright 95+% of the time. “
- “oh sorry , 100% unless I’m running low on battery, where I bring it down to a minimum, I’m guessing 50%, but thats rare”
- “usually around 60-70%”
- “i don’t use them much, mainly desktop, but i either have brightness at full or minimum: latter at night and if battery low”
- “When running laptop on battery, i set brightness to 25-40%, when plugged in -100%.”
- “100% brightness. Left default setting (and I appreciate it that way… old eyes). “
- “slammed up to full when possible, monitor screens vary though”
- “mine is usually as bright as I can make it. I hate dim screens. “
- “max brightness notwithstanding battery impact. “
- “I lower my screen brightness to the lowest, usable level that’s comfortable. It’s all about the battery life.
“ - “Agreed…I think mine is usually around 30% or so. “
- “it varies by location due to lighting levels. Usually around 30% or 40%. Never > 50% when on battery. “
- “ME: 90 to 100% on AC, about 50 % on battery when I’m watching movies and about 20 to work. “
I also received some really interesting responses related to interpretation, explanations, tools and resources on brightness after asking about 60 nits. Got to love social media.
- “not all that hard. Need 800+ nits to read screens in direct sun, 30-150 for night highway signs: http://bit.ly/cjxJB“
- “60 nits = table in an office with 300 lux illumination: http://bit.ly/FvoKe BTW sRGB calibration target = 80 nits. “
- “oh and here’s a Kodak guide on how to use a digital camera and gray card as an ad-hoc nit estimator: http://bit.ly/1IMLK3“
You be the judge
I titled this blog, “MM07, 60 Nits, One Nit-picker and you” and now I ask you, am I just nitpicking? I ask you to make that decision for yourself. I have described a few things:
- First, MM07 test requires a 60 nit or higher display brightness. To maximize battery life benchmarks, systems are set at the minimum allowable 60 nit level. This setting is thereby integrated into this battery life benchmark that is then used in consumer advertisings.
- Secondly, worst case, the display brightness of many electronics inside my home at my family’s “comfort setting” is 2.58X more than the MM07 nit setting requirement. Based on the small set of notebooks I tested, MM07’s 60 nits equated to around 20-30% of the max notebook brightness. Your mileage will vary, maybe.
- Third, my unscientific querying last week says many classes of users crank their screen beyond 61% and many at max brightness. Yes, I said max. Some self-selected a lower brightness setting to conserve battery life.
Nuff said, you be the judge. Agree, disagree, I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
(1) MobileMark 2007 White Paper, March 2008, Revision 1.0. 4.2.1 “Display brightness”
Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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 linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
Why Your Notebook Battery Life Never Quite Seems Equal to the Claims
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 4:52 PM
Do you ever feel like the actual battery life on your notebook never quite equals the information that appears in promotional material? For example, you may see “up to five hours,” but actually get about half that. Well, you aren’t alone. I hear it all the time, and if you do a quick Twitter search on the topic, you’ll see lots of discussion.
I can assure you that no devious plot exists to mislead you. It really comes down to three simple factors.
#1: Measurements are best case: Like a car’s “highway miles per gallon” which gauges the best case (cruising at a sustained speed for an extended period without stop-and-go driving), notebook battery life is typically based on MobileMark® 2007. This benchmark primarily measures battery life while the notebook is doing nothing – not even wirelessly connecting to the Internet. A “city-driving” equivalent of notebook battery life doesn’t exist…yet.
#2: Different strokes for different folks: Notebook users are different; we all use notebooks differently, and therefore will see different battery durations. Some watch HD web videos on YouTube, some may just do email, and some play more games than others. ALL which will mean varying battery life. You can see this data from AMD here that shows the phenomenon. This even shows that battery life under system use can even vary by component manufacturer.
#3: Battery life varies over time: The longer you own your notebook, use it, charge, and recharge, over and over again, the more the battery loses its effectiveness. So theoretically, your longest battery life will be on the first day you crack open the packaging. See all the people selling new batteries for old notebooks? Some even say, battery life is variable with heat.
So what should a consumer like you do?
- Grade battery life on a “curve”, let’s say 60%. If the label says 10 hours, my guess is it’s probably only about 6 hours in real use. (UPDATE: this isn’t always linear, so be very careful with this.)
- Ask your retailer and systems providers to provide the “city miles per gallon” or using the tried and tested cellphone analogy, “talk-time”. They all have web sites and when all else fails, you can ask them over Twitter.
I may have not added back 40% of your battery life, but hopefully you know why you only get 60% of it!
(This blog was originally published at the Technologizer web site. Updated with full blog June 8, 2009.)
Where Can You Go To Engage In The Notebook Battery Life Discussion?
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 10:35 AM
So how can you provide your input into the controversial “battery life metric” discussion?
It has been nearly two weeks since AMD engaged the community to ask for their feedback on how the industry should evolve notebook battery life metrics. I have received many questions on where folks can send their feedback and follow the discussion.
Below I have listed some key destinations for discussion.
AMD Blogs
- Nigel Dessau’s high-level notebook battery life blog : Objects in the Toolbar May Be Further Away Than They Seem
- Hal Speed’s detailed notebook battery life blog: There has to be a Better Way
Press and Community Discussions (sampling)
- Slashdot: AMD: ‘we’re not entirely honest’ about batteries
- Engadget: AMD proposes new laptop battery life metrics, Intel is like “whatevs”
- TweakTown: AMD wants to talk battery life with Intel
- The Inquirer: Intel: consumers not bright enough for discussion
- Chris Brogan: An Important Conversation About Conversations
- Icrontic: A Look at AMD’s daring Social media Strategy
- Hot Hardware: Why Are Notebook Batteries So Misleading?
- Wall Street Journal: AMD: Why No One Believes Estimates for Laptop Battery Life
- Tom’s Hardware: AMD: Let’s Revamp Laptop Battery Metrics
- PC Pro: AMD admits industry “not entirely honest” about battery life
- GadgetSteria: “We Lie so you’ll buy our products”
- Notebooks.com: Time for More Battery Life Metrics
- PC Authority: AMD: ‘we are not being entirely honest’ about battery life
- InformationWeek: AMD Proposes Better Battery Life Tests
- Technology Blog: AMD Wants to Revise Laptop Battery Metrics
- TechSpot: AMD calls for new battery measurement standard
- IT Pro: AMD executive admits the industry is “not entirely honest” on the subject of battery life
- Fudzilla: AMD tries to spark a “false battery-life” discussion. Intel doesn’t.
- Thinkpads: AMD Calls for new battery life standards
- The Independent: Why don’t batteries last as long as they’re supposed to?
- Uber.la: Battery Life: Does Anybody Really Care What Time It Is? – Until Their Laptop Goes Black?
Or, of course, you can use Twitter, but be sure to use the #batterylife hashtag so people can easily follow. You can also follow the “notebook or laptop battery life” discussion on Twitter here.
In the next few weeks we will be organizing all of the inputs and will share these with you in an organized fashion. We will also be soliciting feedback from our customers. Until then, keep the conversation going! Unlike other major technology companies, we believe that blogs are good forums to have these conversations, and gauging from your responses, I think a great many of you agree.
Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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 linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
How Valuable Are Smartphone Battery Life Figures?
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 4:26 AM
I do a lot of hands-on research on smartphones. I do this for two reasons. First, I believe they are fast becoming one of the prevalent cloud clients, and second, they are fast becoming a popular device to consume video. AMD obviously is involved in building the cloud with the AMD OpteronTM Processors but also conversion to make a video smartphone-friendly can take a tremendous amount of compute power, and ATI Radeon TM HD 4800 series graphics and AMD Phenom TM II X4 processors do those conversions quite well.
One smartphone element that needs some more discussion is the value of battery life figures that one finds at the point of purchase or research. Whether it’s the iPhone, Blackberry Bold, Blackberry Storm, or Nokia N96, there initially appears to be variability between claims, tests, and personal usage. Let’s take a look at each phone and see if that’s the case.
iPhone
Apple’s web site lists the following for the 3G iPhone:
- Talk time: up to 5 hours on 3G, 10 hours on 2G
- Standby time: up to 300 hours
- Internet use: up to 5 hours on 3G, 6 hours on WiFi
- Video playback: Up to 7 hours
- Audio playback: Up to 24 hours
The birdseed print states that the testing was done with pre-production handsets back in June, 2008. I also found the methodology interesting in that different features were sometimes toggled on/off during the tests: WiFi association, WiFi “ask to join networks”, call forwarding, and auto-brightness.
Anandtech did their own testing and reported the following battery life for the 3G iPhone:
- Talk time: 4 hours 44 mins (284 mins) on 3G; 6 hours 4 mins (364 mins) on EDGE
- Web browsing: 3 hours 17 mins (197 minutes) on 3G; 6 hours, 40 mins (400 minutes) on WiFi; 4 hours and 3 mins (243 minutes) on EDGE
Anandtech’s number confirmed and disputed some of the numbers listed by Apple, but then again they may not have tested exactly the same way. I am impressed by Apple’s depth and transparency of information as you will soon see why…
Blackberry Bold
RIM’s web site lists the following for the Bold:
- Talk time: 4 hours, 30 mins
- Standby time: 324 hours (13.5 days)
I found it interesting that there were no disclaimers evident anywhere on the web site and there were no battery life scores for internet, video or audio.
I looked long and hard and found some testing reviews by Boy Genius and Asian One that listed what I would describe as good “compilation battery remarks”, but couldn’t find as detailed a review as Anandtech had for the iPhone.
BoyGenius commented that their testing had included:
- 300-500 emails a day,
- one hour of web surfing over 3G,
- Wi-Fi usually turned on, Bluetooth turned off,
- JiveTalk connected, and around one hour of phone calling (although they admitted that they didn’t normally use the BlackBerry as a phone), and that their test phone’s battery lasted from 9AM until 4:30AM (or 7 ½ hours).
The talk time figure is around what I get, but I would like to see more granularity by usage model with more details around specific usages around internet use and video playback.
Blackberry Storm
RIM’s web site lists the following for the Storm:
- Talk time: 6 hours
- Standby time: 356 hours (15 days)
As with the Bold, I also found it interesting on the Storm that there were no disclaimers evident anywhere and again there were no battery life scores for internet, video or audio.
CNet reported the following test results for the Storm:
- Talk time: 7 hours
- Music: 14 hours, 45 mins
As with the Bold, the Storm’s talk time figure is around what I get, but I would like to see more granularity by usage model with more details around specific usages around internet use and video playback.
Nokia N96
Nokia’s web site lists the following for the Nokia N96:
- Talk time: up to 150 / 220 minutes (WCDMA / GSM)
- Stand-by time: up to 8 / 9 days (WCDMA / GSM)
- Video playback: up to 5 hours (offline mode)
- Music playback: up to 14 hours (offline mode)
There is an asterisk that disclaims that “Operation times may vary depending on radio access technology, used operator network configuration and usage.”
All About Symbian reported the following activities they could complete in 16.5 hours on the N96 on one charge:
- YouTube Videos: approx 1 Hour playing using the S60 browser through 3.5G
- General Web Surfing: approx 1 Hour using both WiFi and 3.5G
- Mucking about with settings and navigating menus, etc.: approx 1 hour
- Setup Profimail and synced my IMAP account, 3,200 Emails, approx 400MB using WiFi, 3.5G and GPRS
- Downloaded the AAS Podcast, approx 20MB directly on the N96, and played the file using a stereo Bluetooth headset
End users may even find this test methodology the most valuable in that it shows a “day in a life” given a particular charge. This data is impossible to compare against Nokia’s corporate website, but it was nice that Nokia would, like Apple, provide video and music playback numbers. I would like to see Nokia commit to an internet battery life figure.
Conclusions
So what can we take away from this mash-up of smartphone battery life figures? First, there are some significant variances from vendor to vendor in the terminology and the information depth and transparency provided. Secondly, when a third-party review was conducted, it could sometimes be compared to the manufacturer’s specs, sometimes not. In some cases, the third-party review supported the claim, sometimes not. But that could be attributed to a difference in methodology. Net-net, not a whole lot of consistency exists with audio, video and internet battery life scoring.
My single biggest positive takeaway was the consistency with almost everyone on the usage and application of “talk time” and “standby time.” While not as cool as “internet battery” life, if you believe that talking is the primary use for your smartphone, this is good for the consumer.
What do you think about smartphone battery life marks? How is their accuracy and value?
Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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 linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
BlackBerry Bold: My Mobile Cloud Workhorse
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 7:03 AM
(As seen at Notebooks.com and Dell’s Digital Nomads)
Cloud computing is rising in interest even during these uncertain world economic times and AMD is taking an important leadership role in the creation of the cloud. And in opinion, smartphones are increasingly becoming one of the most important cloud clients. What makes smartphones cloud-unique is their portability and versatility. One minute a phone, the next a web browser, the next a video broadcast client. After blogging on the Android G1 and the BlackBerry Storm, and as co-owner of an iPhone (wife’s), people asked me why I didn’t blog on my personal workhorse, the BlackBerry Bold. Well, I aim to please and here it is.
(L to R: iPod touch, BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Bold, Android G1)
Net-net, the Blackberry Bold is my preferred device for work and also serves many good consumer functions as well. At work, I live off of email messaging, then the web, then phone functionality, and the Bold hits high marks on all fronts.
What I Like
- Physical keyboard with trackball: This is where RIM leaves everyone in the dust. I consider this the perfect smartphone keyboard, mastered over years by RIM. Whether you want to write a complete thesis of mankind or a 140 character Tweet, it’s the best, and I challenge anyone with an iPhone to a typing contest. I never took typing so those who did need not apply. Touch is cool and I like it on my iPod touch, but I find it so easy to screw up on long notes. With the trackball you can dart all over the screen in light speed and 360 degrees with just your thumb.
- Email Messaging: If you have Blackberry Enterprise Server, the Bold becomes the Godzilla of messaging. Many times I will get email on my Blackberry before it even hits my desktop. Spooky. You can also easily configure accounts from Yahoo Mail, GMail and Outlook. Fast and reliable, for work.
- Upgradeable storage and replaceable battery: Android G1, Storm, and Bold all have upgradable memory and replaceable battery. It’s kind of a pet peeve I have with the iPhone. Call me conservative, but I don’t like the thought of being on a long business trip and not have a spare battery. I carry a 16GB microSD in an externally accessible memory slot. No need to remove batteries, just a side door. It fits my documents, videos, and music quite well and theoretically limitless with every added card.
MicroSD door closed
MicroSD door open
- MS Office File Support: Built-in and free, you can download, save, view, and even edit the latest PowerPoint, Word, and Excel files. Excel wasn’t that useful given column width issues, but Word and especially PowerPoint was impressive. For an added fee, you can even create these documents.
- Rock solid: The Storm was solid physically, but the Bold is rock-solid. I have dropped it on every axis, 25x with no issues. Whenever I dropped my Pearl, I would get a SIM card error or the battery would pop out. Drop the Bold… pick it up where you left off. I suspect my Bold could easily survive a 5′ drop onto its screen. Would you say that for your iPhone?
From an application stability standpoint, I only get lockups or issues on some of the more sophisticated video streaming apps like Qik, but for the other 99.9% of the time, rock solid.
- Multitasking & Copy Paste: Unlike some phones, the Bold can multitask. If you are anything like me, you are bouncing between the phone, Google maps, the browser, email, address book, and want to go back at the stage where you left off, not start the app over again.
I can copy and paste literally between EVERY application on the Bold and its add-on apps. Very impressive and a huge time-saver.
- Screen: This display is 480×320 pixels and strikingly crisp. It’s only about half the size of an iPhone, but then again it’s 100% screen, and doesn’t share it with a keyboard. The only situation I want more screen is for videos, some web sites, and maybe some PowerPoint.
On web surfing, Bold makes up for the screen size with a very ingenious toggle. If you are on a web page that is wider than the page or the text too small, just press the “z” key and the browser reorients into column mode and you can see the web site much, much better. Press “z” again and it pops into page view mode. The trackball also lets you navigate web pages in 360 degree movement and magnify the area by clicking on it.
- Standard mini-USB port: Bold uses a standard mini-USB port and cable to charge and transfer data. I have a lot of gadgets and don’t have time for proprietary USB implementations. I can handle USB, mini-USB, and micro-USB, but have no time for Palm Centro’s or iPhone proprietary connectors.
- Digital camera: The Bold takes decent pictures at 2MP with 1600×1200 max resolution. The built-in flash is very bright, and I always get comments from envious iPhone owners wishing they had a flash. The Bold supports geo-tagging which uses the GPS capability to log the long/lat data to use with supported photo packages.
- Music player: Same as the Storm. I easily synched my iTunes playlists and all my non-DRM’d songs played. The album art also transferred which was a nice “extra” I didn’t expect. The speaker volume was unexpectedly loud, but not louder than the Storm.
- Video player and recorder: I am very impressed with the breadth of video formats supported; unlike other popular phones…. uh iPhone. The Bold supports DivX 4, DivX 5/6 is partially supported, XviD is partially supported, H.263, H.264, and WMV3 are supported. For me, it did play non-DRM’d video from my iPod and Nano with no alterations, very convenient. You can reconvert loads of video which can take advantage of four processor cores. I used an AMD Phenom TM X4 9950 quad core processor overclocked to 3.2Ghz (using AMD Fusion for Gaming utility) and was appreciating all four of those wonderful cores.¹
The video recorder function is awesome, but only in medium or high lighting. It records in .3gp format in low density quality, fine for streaming real-time to the internet or even emailing. I use Qik to real-time stream video to the internet.
Improvements I would like to See
- Faster web Java-script: Like the Storm, web surfing was fast on most sites until I hit java-script-laden sites, then the browser appeared to slow down. The default browser setting is “off” and if a site really needs Java-script to accomplish a major task, it asks you. My point of reference here is the iPhone and the Touch which has fast browsing with or without Java-script turned on.
- Improved popular applications: I can live without iPhone “Fart” or G1’s “Level” app, but not without a better functioning FaceBook and Twitter application. What a faux pas when compared to the iPhone. It has been months and would expect more from RIM. If iPhone ever got a physical keyboard and multitasking, I could be swayed. With that said, BlackBerry has some very good and differentiated applications like Qik for real-time video streaming, Flickr for photo uploads, SlingPlayer TV, YouVersion Bible and E*Trade Mobile Pro.
Summary
Today I prefer the Bold as my cloud workhorse to the alternatives (iPhone, Storm, Android G1) and has enough good consumer features to keep me happy and interested for the time being. RIM will need to improve web Java-script execution time and up the ante on the popular applications if they want folks to continue to cheer them on. With talk of iPhone’s improved multitasking, copy-paste, and video recorder functionality, I hope this will provide impetus for some improvements. If not, maybe the Palm Pre’.
I would love to hear from your experiences with the BlackBerry Bold.
¹ AMD’s PRODUCT WARRANTY DOES NOT COVER DAMAGES CAUSED BY OVERCLOCKING, EVEN WHEN OVERCLOCKING IS ENABLED VUA AMD SOFTWARE. THE AMD FUSION FOR GAMING UTILITY MAY DISABLE SECURITY / ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE, OR ADVERSELY AFFECT YOUR SYSTEM. REVIEW ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENTATION CAREFULLY BEFORE INSTALLING.
Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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 linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
My Perfect Mini-Notebook
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 9:02 AM
One great thing about blogs is that it is anyone and everyone’s chance to express their opinions, and I definitely have opinions. :> However, attacking one’s personal experiences is a bit like questioning free speech or democracy, but that’s exactly what makes Web 2.0 so exciting, everyone does it. So even when I get misquoted (never called it “useless”) in news stories based on what I said in a video concerning netbooks (should be hard to get wrong, I know), it generates discussion on the pros, cons, and on-the-road experiences of various netbook and mini-notebook designs. And after talking with various sources, it has already impacted future thinking, which is ultimately good for consumers, channels, OEMs, and ODM’s.
After testing seven netbooks (1) over the last five months, I now know what I want to see in future designs. This may not be the same for all 6,699,999,999 people on earth, but perhaps for a handful or two of likeminded people.
One caveat: I don’t expect a single mini-notebook design to be able to meet both my usage models:
- One inside the home focused on entertainment
- One outside the home focused on portability
My ideal at-home mini-notebook
I would like to carry my mini-notebook from room-to-room, plugging it in via HDMI to the next best available flat panel TV in the home. It would also be great to wirelessly stream 1080i video content off the web or my home server, which would benefit from HD graphics decode capability, wireless-N, and the capability to externally project at 1920×1080i resolutions. A simple, Gyration-style wireless remote should come standard to easily navigate content from 10’.
For web surfing, I would like the peace of mind that my system could support the next-generation of Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight technology, so it doesn’t become a paperweight in 6 months. This means the processor and native panel screen size must be up to par. Kids’ sites like Webkinz, the “World of Warcraft for kids,” today requires at least 1024×768 (tomorrow, maybe 1280×1024) internal panel sizes, and I need at least enough CPU performance to prevent pauses in the action. Try running Hulu HD, an Apple HD trailer, or iTunes HD TV shows on a netbook and you will know what I am talking about. A 13” panel would really optimize the viewing experience when not connected to an external display.
Battery life isn’t that important at home, but a couple hours would be reasonable, along with a retractable power cord. Weight isn’t as important unless you have difficulty carrying a few pounds room to room. If that’s the case, I would recommend a lifetime membership to Gold’s Gym. Hard drive size isn’t as important because I can leverage the hard drive space on my home server, but I still want at least 160GB for applications or DRM-based content loads in case I need to take it on a family trip.
On games, While I don’t expect to play Crysis on highest quality settings, I would expect to be able to play a game like Spore and the Sims 2 at 30 fps (frames per second) and decent quality settings.
My ideal away-from-home mini-notebook
Outside the home is all about portability features and much less about entertainment. Battery life, size and weight become absolutely paramount in defining an “acceptable” bar level of performance.
Like the “at home” netbook, I still want my version to be able to effectively run today’s and at least one future generation of web applications at resolutions no less than 1024×768. I don’t think that is asking too much, is it? Also, I could live with less than a 10” display.
Eight to nine hours battery life (which we know really means five to six browsing hours) would be optimal, as I probably wouldn’t even need to bring a power cord for the day. If I don’t need to bring my power cord with me every time I go outside the house, then having a larger, possibly less expensive and faster charging power brick would be OK. This only makes sense if it saves money on the BOM cost because those tiny power adapters are cool.
As I said, if I’m going to need to lug this everywhere, weight is a huge factor and at 1.5 to 2 lbs, this seems plenty light enough. Also, the closed height cannot exceed ¾”, which would make it thicker than a Mac Air, but thinner than the Asus Eee PC Surf 4G, allowing for easy storage in a glove box or even in my bedroom drawer.
On the WAN communications side, I want to insert my SIM chip into my mini-notebook from my BlackBerry and get the same speedy, instant-on communications features I have had for years. Sure, I could tether, but if you are redesigning something, why settle for “good enough?” I don’t want to wait for 4G to do something useful or fun and could live with 3G or even, gasp, EDGE. Why should I have to pay for service twice? I know Pat, grow up, this is business… :>
Hard drive storage is a bit more important with this design because I wouldn’t have speedy access to large amounts of quick storage on my home server. Sure, I could use one of those “in-the-cloud” services, but until someone invents a more reliable synchronization tool, I will keep my documents and iTunes and Movielink content on my system, snugly fit on a 320GB hard drive. I have been keeping my “life” on MyYahoo for years, including my contacts, notes, calendar, and email, but documents and content are different.
As I would want to use this in my car, GPS and high bandwidth Bluetooth must be standard. The GPS is obvious, as I could use it as a mapping tool. I would like to use the higher bandwidth Bluetooth to gain access to my car speaker system and also pump audible navigational signals as well. Of course, if this thing serves as the nerve center for my car, I need some type of standard docking mechanism that delivers power with ease of attachment so I can take it in the house when I am home from work. I know, I am asking a lot.
So that is what I want in my mini-notebook. A bit different I know, but did you expect anything less? And if you are wondering why I didn’t call it a “netbook”, well I want to more than just the “net.”
With that, I would like to hear your thoughts on what your dream mini-notebook would look like.
1) Asus Eee PC 4G, Asus Eee PC 900, MSI U100, Dell Inspiron 910, HP 2133, Geode reference design, Asus Eee PC 1000H.
Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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 linked sites and no endorsement is implied.