Windows 7 battery life worse than XP

Computerworld has a piece which talks about how a number of tech-related sites have complained about the lower battery efficiency of Windows 7. With Windows 7 scheduled for general availability in less than two months time, and the increasing popularity of laptops, this is certainly an issue that IT managers and users will be very interested in.

Of course, the ultimate verdict is still out on this one; or at least until the first fully optimized netbook or laptop with Windows 7 appears on the market. Still, I thought it would be fun to examine this topic, so I posed the question to George Ou. Ou is the Policy Director of Digital Society, a technology think tank, and the author of a personal blog on tech-related topics.

According to Ou, "What I have found is that Windows 7 battery life is (very slightly) better than Windows Vista. However, it's not quite as good as Windows XP, because it runs more optimizations in the background and it displays more intensive graphics on the desktop such as Aero." He suggested disabling these extra features for a more "apples-to-apples comparison."

Personally, I've found the battery life on my laptop dipped noticeably after installing Windows 7 RC on my Windows Vista laptop. What's the mileage for you early adopters out there, who have tried out Windows 7 already?

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Computerworld

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