Windows 7 Drains Battery Life
Students have been complaining for a while now. Windows 7 is very tough on laptop battery life. This complaint is spreading now:
“Microsoft’s Windows 7 is sucking the life out of laptops and netbooks at a faster rate than its predecessors, according to computer users who posted their complaints on a support forum maintained by the software maker.
Some users are complaining that the operating system is draining their batteries at an alarming rate, while others say the OS is issuing false alerts, warning them that their batteries are about to run dry despite having a full charge.”
link: Windows 7 A Battery Hog, Users Complain
Some people who did the upgrade to Windows 7 are going back to an older operating system because of the inconvenience of this problem. For those who have new machines with Windows 7 installed, the anger is building. Microsoft has a potential public relations disaster in the making. And it is not the fault of the battery.
Catherine Forsythe
10 Comments
Darthveggie
February 3rd, 2010
at 7:36pm
This is odd considering I’ve had Windows 7 on my laptop since the beta was announced and I’ve noticed my battery lasts at least a third as long as Vista ever did! Maybe I’m just lucky..
Levi
February 3rd, 2010
at 8:00pm
Yeah, everyone around here says that Windows 7 extends battery life of their laptops. This post is the first I’ve heard of this problem.
bojak
February 4th, 2010
at 11:20am
this is the first time i heard of this ..
Marc M
February 4th, 2010
at 11:44am
Me too – had Win7 on since the Beta also, now have Win7 Ultimate and I get a bit better battery power then when I had Vista and XP on it.
Axertion
February 4th, 2010
at 1:31pm
I notice the people who complain about new things are always the ignorant ones.
Windows 7 improved my battery life. But its nothing compared to how OSX conserves battery power (monitor dimming, keyboard dimming etc.) Microsoft should really implement something that dims the screen based on brightness from the webcam
Jacob
February 4th, 2010
at 1:32pm
I’ve never heard of anything like that before. Maybe he’s just a PC hater.
Ryan m
February 4th, 2010
at 1:32pm
I’ve had Windows 7 since launch on a 2008 Vista laptop, and I’ve not had a problem with loss of Battery life on my computer. Although I do think think that laptop owners should not keep their laptop charged all the time, as it will lose battery life that way.
Russ
February 4th, 2010
at 1:46pm
This is news to me also? My Battery last longer with Win7 than with XP Pro…
And the sleep works great, I just shut my PC lid and hardly ever Reboot or start my Laptop now.
I guess I’m another lucky one also…
And Since this article has been out for a while You’d think you’d hear it in the main stream media? (At least I haven’t)
Connor Bryant
February 5th, 2010
at 3:54pm
I agree with Axertion ~ it’s always the ignorant ones. My friend has an alienware laptop (which has backlit keys, glowing alien logo, and all that) and he runs windows 7 and he hasn’t complained.
DogReader
February 10th, 2010
at 12:08pm
[...] the claims that Windows 7 is causing battery problems. There has been growing discontent that Windows 7 is providing false alerts. Microsoft denies that this is the case:“… Sinofsky also dismissed claims by a minority [...]