There is a disturbing trend in the gadget world, and it’s that laptop, tablet and phone makers aren’t taking battery life seriously enough. Yes, having touch on a Windows 8 notebook is great, but not if the computer lasts an hour and a half less than one without that capability. And what good is a smartphone with an HD display and superfast processor if you have to plug it in around lunchtime?
We run our homemade battery test, which involves continuous web surfing at 40 per cent brightness, on every device we review. And if the endurance isn’t good enough, regardless of the gadget’s other features, we simply won’t recommend it.
Here are seven of my worst battery life offenders and how much you will pay per hour of juice versus more efficient competitors.
Staying on the cutting edge of gadget tech doesn’t come without a few sacrifices — both monetarily and in terms of battery life. And what good is an HD display if you can’t even use it? Laptop Mag’s Mark Spoonauer breaks down the worst drainers in detail.
Microsoft Surface Pro ($US899)
Battery life: 4:37
Cost per hour of juice: $US195 per hour
You know it’s a bad sign when the top tech story in Google News is that you might be offering an external battery for your product. Despite its Core i5 power and the ability to run both desktop and Windows Store apps, we don’t recommend the Surface Pro because its four hours and 37 minutes of battery life completely undermines its portability. The average ultraportable laptop lasts about an hour and a half longer. And while the iPad isn’t as versatile, it lasted 12 hours and 22 minutes on our battery test. That’s 2.5 times the endurance. If you opted for the 128GB iPad ($US799/$A869), that works out to $US64 an hour of juice, compared to $US195 per hour for the Surface Pro.
Acer C7 Chromebook ($US199)
Battery life: 4:24
Cost per hour of juice: $US45 per hour
Lets take a look at two Chromebooks with around the same price: the Samsung Series 3 Chromebook ($US249) and Acer C7 ($US199). Both devices sport 11-inch displays, but the ARM-powered Chromebook lasted 7:34, while the C7 lagged more than three hours behind at 4:24. Granted, the C7 isn’t designed to be your primary PC, and maybe you will use it mostly around the house. But why would you pay $US45 per hour of battery life for the Acer when, for just $US50 more, you can get the much more efficient, $US33-per-hour Samsung Chromebook? The Series 3 also happens to sport a sleeker design.
ASUS Taichi ($US1299)
Battery life: 4:37
Cost per hour of juice: $US282 per hour
One of the most innovative Windows 8 hybrids of the year is also one of the most disappointing. Almost everyone who sees the ASUS Taichi, which has a second screen on the back of its lid, can’t help but say “Wow”. All you have to do to transform this 11.6-inch wonder from clamshell to tablet mode is shut the lid.
While we wish both displays offered touch capability (just the outside one does), my biggest complaint is the lack of staying power. In laptop mode, the device lasted four hours and 37 minutes, and with just the touchscreen active, we saw only three hours and 37 minutes. The average ultraportable laptop lasts 1.5 hours longer. While it’s bigger, the $US1199, 12-inch Dell XPS Duo lasted 5:46, translating to a much better efficiency rating of $US206 per hour.
Google Nexus 4 ($US299/$A349)
Battery life: 4:36
Cost per hour of juice: $US65 per hour
If you want a pure Google experience, the unlocked Nexus 4 is the smartphone to buy. You get the latest Android 4.2 Jelly Bean software, a nifty Photo Sphere camera and absolutely no ugly skins. Too bad the 2100mAh battery inside this handset lasted only four hours and 36 minutes on our battery test. The HTC One VX lasted 6:58 on our test, good for a $US7 per hour efficiency rating.
HP Pavilion Chromebook ($US329)
Battery life (rated): up to 4:15
Cost per hour of juice: $US78 per hour
We give HP credit for being transparent about the battery life it expects out of its Pavilion Chromebook. The company says “up to” four hours and 15 minutes via the four-cell battery. Even if the system lives up to that not-so-lofty number, it will lag way behind the Samsung Chromebook’s score of 7:34. Granted, HP’s Chromebook has a much larger, 14-inch display, but it also costs $US80 more for something you can’t use for very long away from an outlet.
Put another way, you’ll pay $US78 per hour of endurance, versus $US33 per hour for the Samsung. That’s nearly a 2.5x premium.
Techno Source Kurio Tablet ($Us149)
Battery life: 3:37
Cost per hour of juice: $US39.50 per hour
You might have heard of the Kurio 7 tablet, because it’s targeted directly to families. This $US149, Android-powered device lets you create multiple child profiles with ease, as well as restrict screen time and Web surfing. Parents can also choose to whitelist only the apps they want Junior to use. But what good is a kids’ tablet if it runs out of juice in just three hours and 37 minutes? That works out to $US39.50 per hour. The $US199 Amazon Kindle Fire HD lasted 7:34 (or $US26 per hour), and it has a parent-friendly FreeTime mode. And the $US199 Fuhu Nabi 2 didn’t conk out until 8:05 ($24.50 per hour).
Lenovo ThinkPad Twist ($US899)
Battery life: 4:36
Cost per hour of juice: $US195 per hour
Here’s a twist on the Windows 8 convertible you should probably avoid. The 12.5-inch ThinkPad Twist combines a swivelling touchscreen with one of the better keyboards you’ll find. We especially like the stand mode for giving presentations. Just make sure you’re near an outlet. On our battery test, the Twist died after 4 hours and 36 minutes. The average ultraportable notebook lasts 6:01. Although it has a slightly larger display, Lenovo’s own IdeaPad Yoga lasted a much longer 6:18. In efficiency terms, the $US899 Twist would cost you $US195 per hour of juice, compared to $US182 per hour for a $US1159 Yoga outfitted with a much faster 128GB SSD. That’s an easy call in my book.
Related Links:
- Countdown: 10 Smartphones with the Longest Battery Life
- Acer Aspire S7-391 Extra Battery Tested: Ugly But 9 Hours of Power
- 10 Tablets with the Longest Battery Life
All smartphones and tablets should have been mentioned, just saying.
The ones with poor battery life were mentioned.
I think he may have been implying that all smartphones and tablets have poor battery life.... maybe.
I think he was being facetious... maybe
Guess you have never used the Galaxy Note 2 that thing has awesome battery life!
You gotta wonder about how they test the devices. Yes they claim continuous web surfing at 40% brightness but what does that mean?
Did you spend your time on YouTube and Vimeo on one device and online gaming with another and text only sites with another?
Did you only test one device? Perhaps it had a dud battery.
Was the battery properly charged in the first place? Perhaps some sort of memory issue was at play
10 hour video of Nyan Cat?
I don't get this $ per hour of juice.
Someone should explain to whoever wrote this that you can actually recharge each and every one of these devices.
And the surface recharges incredibly quickly, too.
It doesn't really make sense. I think the idea is, the more expensive the gadget, the more battery life i should get. If we really want to play that game, the MBP with retina costs $357.14 per hour. And in that we see the stupidity of that metric.
Yet, not a single Apple product listed.
maybe they aren't the worst? ...maybe
Did you read the comment I replied to?
If you're going by the authors metrics of $ per hour battery life then the Macbook Pro w/ retina comes in at $357.14 per hour.
my MBP easily lasts longer than all these! or maybe I'm delusional?
But you see, the stupid metric that the author is going by has nothing to do with just battery life, but battery life on one charge divided by the total cost of the product, which is a totally meaningless metric.
Because, as you said, even though the MBP lasts longer than these devices, it would rate highest on this metric due to it's price.
I'm not bashing Apple products, I'm bashing the author for this shitty metric.
that makes wonderfully perfect sense...
And if you were only paying for the battery you'd be correct. Since you're not only paying for the battery you're not correct.
Hey great point, thats why it would have made sense to discuss functionality vs battery life.
but who am I kidding, the whole article was conceived to attack the Surface Pro. I don't get it really... I'm in love with my surface pro. What I've been waiting for in a tablet.
You carry a 20kg 750Watt two stroke generator and your power brick with you to the beach do you? It's about how long you can run before you have to find a stupid power point mate.
Yo're not very bright, apparently
I have trouble believing this.
Not only does the stated price of the Surface Pro compared to 4h 37m come to 194, not 199, the 12h 22m of the 'iPad 128gb' is actually for either the 32/64gb - which would make that cost/battery life estimate incorrect.
Pedantic, I know, but cost per battery life? Really? What a stupid metric. I'll just sell a car battery taped to an LED light. Winner.
Last edited February 13, 2013 12:39 pm
Not to mention the whole retardness of comparing the tablet with the insides of a PC with a shitty ipad.
As long as they call it a 'tablet' it is fair game to compare it to a tablet.
They call it Surface Pro, and it runs a desktop O/S
Except the official website's title is "Surface by Microsoft, Buy the New Windows Tablet"
Really? Under the surface pro (note, not the RT) it says..
"A powerful PC in tablet form"
I'd take that as cue for 'PC that I can carry'.
maybe they should've done "Worst Battery Life Guzzling [insert gadget category here]"... ?
It comes to something when we are complaining about battery life in excess of 4 hours. Only 3 or 4 years ago it was amazing to get even half that out of any laptop. Even my Core i7 Zenbook was only good for around 5 hours. OTOH, before smartphones it was easy to get 4 or 5 days out of your phone's battery. Not any more.
As for the whole idea of dollars per hour, it is the most absurd thing imaginable. Battery life is not even on my radar when choosing a new laptop. Even if it were, 4:37 for a Core i5 Surface seems like a perfectly acceptable trade-off for its performance and utility.
Last edited February 13, 2013 1:00 pm
I always wonder when I read your comments, so many things are off your radar when looking to buy a laptop that are core features of laptops, why don't you just buy a desktop?
It's a bit hard to carry a desktop around on the bike (or even in the car, for that matter). A desktop machine would also be a lot of effort to cart to a gig and set up on stage. We used to do it - we took a Shuttle PC to Europe when we played there in 2005, but since laptops got grunty enough for our needs, and cheap enough to keep updated, I've moved on.
Once I forgot to pack my laptop charger and spent 4 days in NZ with my work Dell M70. I managed to get through 3 of those 4 days doing customer demos before the 2 hour battery life expired. Obviously it was less than ideal but I got through. In all the time I was travelling, more than 5 years, that is the only time I can recall being caught out. Whenever I needed to plug in I always managed to find somewhere to do it.
My Series 9 has amazing battery life - around 6 hours, even though it only charges to 80% in order to extend the working life of the battery - but that's not why I bought it.
Plus it's not that hard to find a universal charger now days.
If your not intending to use the laptop in a park on in the middle of nowhere, battery life is irrelevant. Hell my mother took hers on her trip to the states last time. Used it on the plane. Took a pair of 7AH AGM batteries on the plane with her along with the car charger for her laptop. Problem solved.
Soon as I saw this article my first thought was "I bet MotorMouth comes in to complain about the Surface Pro being listed." Maybe battery life isn't on your radar when choosing a laptop but it is for plenty of others. It might be inconceivable to you, but sometimes people go places without access to a power point for over 4 hours. Other i5 tabs have managed battery life times in excess of 5 hours.
See, here you are accusing me of a lack of objectivity, yet it is you who's displaying it in spades. I was actually more taken by the fact the TaiChi is on the list, despite having the same battery life as the Zenbook I found more than adequate in real life, over a full year of actual ownership. I really don't have any great interest in Surface Pro, although it seems alot better than I thought it would be.
As for power-points, I am reasonably sure I spend at least as much time away from them as anyone and when I was travelling around Asia for a living, I can guarantee that I did. Yet, despite that and the fact that laptop batteries only lasted two hours at that time, I still only ever got caught out once, in extraordinary circumstances. As I said, I spent 4 days unable to plug in my laptop but still managed to make it last 3 days. I imagine that means I could make a 4.5 hour battery last a full week. How often do you go a full week without seeing a power-point?
Dude ur grumpy, emotional and as objective as a collingwood supporter
And if you reckon your not... You're dreaming
Amazingly grumpy for such a knowledgable person tho, I'll give you that
It just shits me that idiots like that think I have an MS bias. It's completely absurd. As a big user of MS products, I probably have more reason to hate them than most, as every time they do something right, they manage to ruin it with the next update or water it down until it loses everything that made it good.
How the fuck does someone use 'ur', 'your', and 'you're' in one fucking sentence
Shows my varied ability with vocabulary as opposed to others more limited handling....
No valentines day gift? Seem grumpy
That's a funny way of admitting your inability to write a sentence properly
You understand that language is transitional? English may have once been 'tu lingua Franca' but the idea of purity in both English,spoken words and their grammatical prose has long since lost its 'purity'
Your probably still a fan of U in colour, color and 'silent' letters, which would indicate ur intelligent enough to know that warm wet feeling is me taking the piss....
How is this a bad sign!?
My Nexus 4 does just fine on battery life, I got from 7am to 10pm most days and still have battery to spare. Then again I'm not browsing the web for 4 hours at a time. Also I've never seen a HTC One VX but my girlfriend had a HTC Sensation and now has a HTC One XL and both have really poor battery life with real world use. Taking this list with a great big chunk of salt.
Yep, I'll go from 5am to 9pm and still have 30% left. More than adequate for my needs. I just charge at work so the charging cost is nothing!
Confused. Do you work nights? And once you leave work at 5am your phone if fine until you start work again at 9pm?
Or do you work a normal day and charge in the middle of it, meaning your phone doesn't really last 5am to 9pm with 30%, but really 5am til whenever-you-start-charging-at-work, then when-you-stop-charging-at-work til 9pm?
Yeah, sorry, it is a bit confusing. I meant I can go from 100% charge in the morning to 30% in the evening - if I charge at home overnight. I was doing that to try and gauge performance.
Now I just charge at work.
*Kisses Playstation Vita* I knew you would make it baby...
Dollars per hour of battery life is the most ridiculous and meaningless metric I've ever heard. Why didn't they include a Fisker Karma, it would have topped the list!
Would have liked to see test results on an iphone of some sort, to be able to compare to the nexus 4. I mean, the nexus 4 made the list of worse battery guzzlers but is it only say 15-30 minutes worse than it's main competitor, is it say 5 hours worse?
For a phone thats pretty bad imho. You usually turn off your laptop when youre not using it. But who turns off their phones when they are not using it, right?
Keep in mind the test was actively using the device non-stop. Everyone locks their smartphone screen when they put it in their pocket, which is for 90% of the time, and that's a standby mode that doesn't consume much power. This test does not imply that you have to charge your phone ever 4½ hours.
I want to see the cost for that new Vertu phone. Now that thing will almost definitely top the list!!
I took my Nokia 920 to NZ recently and put in a NZ 3G SIM. Sent a bunch of SMS but nothing else (internet\calls) and battery lasted 8 days! absolutely awesome.. shame it only lasts a day on 4G with heavy use when back in AUS..
Cost per mile on my bike is much lower than cost per mile in my car. That doesn't mean I shouldn't buy a car for my morning commute.
Seriously, this is considered journalism?
Ok, but the problem with that is that everyone compares its imperfect tablet characteristics only. They love to talk about how big and heavy it is but say nothing about its speed and utility vs common tablets
I don't understand why none of these major companies are making "endurance" models of their laptops. 12 hour battery life would be a killer feature to set them apart and there are people who (myself included) would be ecstatic.
This argument follows ever more so for phones. Why are we upping the speed and size/res of the screen to ridiculous proportions every generation when they could probably release something now with the same processing power and screen as the SGS2 with lower-power parts to get double the battery life? What if you need to stay out for the night? With a lot of current phones, you're expected to drag the charger along to wherever you're going just because it won't last the next day.
I guess a lot of this comes down to the consumer obsession with $/Gflops - anything slower is bad value, regardless of the other factors.
Last edited February 14, 2013 5:43 pm