Vista Could Sap Battery Life?

[Steve]

Could analysts and hardware vendors be right? Will Vista sap notebook battery life (http://www.hardocp.com/news.html?news=MjMwOTMsLCxobmV3cywsLDE=)? While some people are claiming that it will, others seem to think it will not have any significant impact.

"We've done extensive testing, and we haven't seen [shortened battery life]," says Gateway spokesperson Kelly Odle. "While it is true that Vista has higher system requirements than XP, it also has more sophisticated mechanisms to allow for power savings."

[Modred189]

I've been running Vista 32-bit on my laptop for about 3 weeks, and I have seen little or no difference. battery life is so dependent on what kind of activities you use it for, i really don't think this will be a noticable issue.

[Xilikon]

The only thing I can see eating more battery power is laptops with not enough RAM trying to run Vista, which force to use the hard disk. The hard disk will eat batteries for breakfast when sollicited continously.

[Mr. Bill]

I have an inspiron 8600 with the extra bay battery, 512 ram and a pM 1.6, battery life went from 8 hours to 5 1/2-6, but it was worth it:)

[inyourface1650]

I saw a huge decrease in battery life. I havea Inspiron 9300 with 1.5GB of RAM, and a 2.16Gh z P-M, and I went from 3 hours of battery life to just over 2. Significant Loss.

[WarMace]

After setup of vista the hard drive was taking a serious hit from vista cataloging everything for its instant search. After being left on overnight i noticed my notebook returning to normal drain. Yeah, the drain is slightly more, possibly due to the video card being taxed to draw aero glass, but i would in no way define it as sapping.

Heres your mobile Vista tip! WindowsKey+X it will quickly take you to the mobility center where you can set "Power saver" if it is not already set. "Power Saver" mode disables a lot of unnecessary stuff to reduce drain.

[Steve]

On a 3.0GHz 1MB L2 Dell Inspiron 9100 desktop replacement laptop with 1GB of RAM and a Radeon 9700, I have seen very little difference running Vista RC2 (still) compared to Windows XP.

[MChief]

I noticed a huge decrease when I went from XP to Vista - I attribute it to using Aero on my X1600 Radeon :).

My battery life dropped from 4 hrs to 2 and some change.