Comments on: How Bright Do You Keep Your Notebook Screen?

By: Resolved: We Need More Realistic Notebook Battery-Life Claims | Ranceo

Resolved: We Need More Realistic Notebook Battery-Life Claims | Ranceo — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 06:58:50 +0000

[...] they feel high in many cases. Last year, AMD’s Pat Moorhead guestblogged here and noted that PC manufacturers’ battery tests tend to involving cranking screen brightness way, way down. But I do that myself–and turn off features like Bluetooth, and opt for “power saver” [...]

By: Resolved: We Need More Realistic Notebook Battery-Life Claims

Resolved: We Need More Realistic Notebook Battery-Life Claims — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 02:51:03 +0000

By: When are Laptop Battery Specs Going to Get Real? | uber.la

When are Laptop Battery Specs Going to Get Real? | uber.la — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 04:06:02 +0000

[...] Additional Links: Technologizer: How Bright Do You Keep Your Notebook Screen? By Patrick Moorhead, June 12, 2009 [...]

By: John McElhenney

John McElhenney — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:37:32 +0000

Here’s an update about Apple’s new MacBooks with non-removable batteries. What is great is the REAL WORLD test they put the MacBook Pro through:

Over at AnandTech, the new 15″ MacBook Pro was pitted head-to-head against a recent vintage of the previous model. Anand Lal Shimpi says the fixed, flat-pack battery gives the new MacBook Pros “the best battery life I’ve ever seen.” When running on the integrated GPU in the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, playing iTunes steadily in the background, and loading a series of 20 webpages every 20 seconds, the MacBook Pro ran for a few minutes over eight hours. That bests the previous unibody MacBook Pro by three hours.

Several different tests gave battery life results anywhere from a 50 to 100 percent improvement over the “old and busted” previous gen. Since the new non-swappable battery only has 46 percent more capacity, Shimpi believes Apple has done a lot of optimizations across all the hardware to eke out every last bit of power savings.

“There’s no other way to say this,” wrote Shimpi. “If you care about battery life and portability at all, buy the new MacBook Pro. Go to the Apple store and buy one.”

ARSTechica article: http://bit.ly/macbattery

@jmacofearth

By: Marc

Marc — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:41:35 +0000

What about CPUs? I scale mine down to 50% when on battery. I wonder what the optimal is?

By: Dave Barnes

Dave Barnes — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:26:52 +0000

Bright enough that I always wear sunglasses when coding.

Bright enough that my body manufactures all the vitamin D that I need. No reason to ever leave my basement.

Bright enough to take full advantage of the plutonium-powered electrical generator that I have installed underneath my back yard.

By: Patrick Moorhead

Patrick Moorhead — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:45:27 +0000

@jmacofearth We are suggesting a min-max approach like cell phones (standy/talk) and auto mileage (city/highway). One measurement is simply not enough.

Specifically, we are suggesting “Active hours/Resting hours” that communicate the notebook’s “resting time” (hours) and “active time” (hours) to provide a better indication of what the user will get.

Here is what it could look like as a logo: http://blogs.amd.com/nigeldessau/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/batlife-metric1.jpg

By: Marc

Marc — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:27:53 +0000

I always have it at 100% when plugged in, or at 60% if on battery but near a power point. If I’m away from a power point, then I’ll knock it down to 25% (this is a 17 inch HP beast, I get 2 hours max)

By: John McElhenney

John McElhenney — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:55:57 +0000

A nice post Patrick. I could care less about a NIT = what.

What the MM07 requires the following: “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.”

[Aside: Whatever a NIT is, and you do a fine job giving me references to understand it for myself. Could we go back to Candlepower? That at least had a frame of reference. Anyway...]

So what the MM07 measurement is, if your quote above is accurate, is this: Take your laptop and turn the backlighting down until the screen goes black. Click back up ONCE so that you have your back lighting turned on, at the minimum.

Now, would ANYONE CHOOSE TO USE THIS LIGHTING LEVEL if it weren’t for sucky battery life? Seriously?

So as you have said before, Patrick, LET’S GET REAL WITH BATTERY LIFE STATS and MEASUREMENTS.

So what is the OTHER measurement standard you are recommending? And what makes it a better case for our evaluation? And might AMD come out more favorably in that test, or are you merely pointing out a flaw in the current measurements.

Frankly, I am not that concerned with battery life. If I can make it through a couple meetings untethered and plug in again when I get back to my desk, I’m golden. For those real Digital Nomads, hitting the airport circuit on a daily basis, I assume the issue is much more critical.

And if I had to keep my screen on MIN Brightness all day, just to survive, well, I’d be pissed and looking for a different laptop/processor/battery.

Thanks for you honest dialogue Patrick. And Happy Friday!

@jmacofearth