The netbookreview website of Australia recently carried out some testing to see which of the current crop of netbooks available in Australia provided the best operating time. To cut a long story short, they tested with playing a WMV (Windows Media Video format played using the Windows Media Player) continuously, with power management was set to always on, and the screen and hard disk never being put to sleep or spun down. Granted, this is an extreme test with the hard disk spinning all the time to play the video file, and actual usage scenarios wouldn’t be this extreme. So, by looking at the numbers below, you will likely get a longer run time than the test results.
The test wasn’t exactly an apple-to-apple comparison because:
- not all netbooks used the same processor – some used the Atom N series, some the Z series, with the Z series processor giving some additional power saving options.
- battery capacity of netbooks tested differ, both in terms of mAh as well as the number of cells. Obviously a 6 cell is going to give a longer run time compared to a 3 cell!
- one of the top netbooks, the Samsung NC10, wasn’t tested because it wasn’t available in Australia (nor is it available in Malaysia, which is a big pity).
- while most used traditional hard drives, the netbook with the longest run time used a hybrid system of traditional hard disk and a solid state drive.
Notwithstanding the above, the results should give you a a good idea of what netbooks you want to look at, if operating time is your main criteria in getting a netbook. The results:
Model |
Battery Capacity |
Battery Life (hours:mins) |
MSI Wind U115 Hybrid |
11.1V/5100mAh |
6:56 |
Asus Eee PC 1000HD |
7.4V/6600mAh |
4:12 |
Asus Eee PC 901 |
7.4V/6600mAh |
3:59 |
MSI Wind U100 |
11.1V/4400mAh |
3:40 |
Asus Eee PC 1000H |
7.4V/6600mAh |
3:33 |
Asus N10J |
11.1V/4800mAh |
3:05 |
Dell Inspiron Mini 9 |
11.1V/2142mAh |
3:05 |
Asus Eee PC S101 |
7.4V/4900mAh |
2:41 |
Acer Aspire One AOA110 |
11.1V/2200mAh |
2:19 |
Toshiba NB100 |
N/A |
2:14 |
HP Mini 1001TU |
11.1V/2342mAh |
2:05 |
Lenovo IdeaPad S10 |
11.1V/2522mAh |
1:55 |
Dell Inspiron Mini 12 |
14.4V/2200mAh |
1:47 |
Source. Based on feedback, the author wrote another article to explain each tested netbook’s battery capacity as well as power drain. It’s a pity that the Acer Aspire One D150/D250 wasn’t benchmarked – I would have loved to see the results!
Tags: battery operating time, netbook
You have gotten me excited . Now I shall patiently wait for the acer 11.6 inch to be offered for sale then + 3 years later I will buy ! By then a normal battery life shud be 24 hours can give 7-11 a run for the money whatdoyathink ?
haha
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Da Alpha Dog Reply:
April 12th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
My friend, in 3 years time, we’ll have nuclear powered portable fuel cells the size of an AA battery. Netbooks no longer need to be connected to an AC power point. Nor will they need any other power source. The nuclear cell will last forever, it doesn’t require charging.
Of course, then the problem becomes how to prevent accidental nuclear meltdowns, which will be the subject of my next blog
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