3 ms·

Speaking personally, I would want any stress test to be the MOST stressful possible across all laptops for the baseline. Turn off cache (how often do you have t

Speaking personally, I would want any stress test to be the MOST stressful possible across all laptops for the baseline. Turn off cache (how often do you have the console open), run a VM, sit on a Hangout, all at the same time. Make the fans whirr hard. If you want an "econo" benchmark go right ahead but I don't know why one would criticize Consumer Reports for being hard on a laptop browser. (It obviously makes sense for hardware makers to dispute the technique as it's harder to hit "X Hours" markers that are tested)

lucb1e 10y ago
I can see where you're coming from but I disagree. In that case you are testing the battery hardware, while the software actually makes a big difference. Say you have two phones: one with crap software, and one from a company that spends time on writing proper, efficient software. If you run a stress benchmark, they will both be running at 100% CPU all the time and you'll only be measuring how much mAh is in the battery divided by how much power the CPU draws. All of this is information is already available in the product specification. The only reason my Galaxy Note 2's battery life is any good (still the original battery which is, what, 5 years old now?) is because I did software tweaks to keep it from holding wake locks when apps are inactive.
- sailfast 10y ago
  That makes sense and you're right, if all you're doing is a head-on stress test then just let the math do the talking. I think testing heavy use is probably different than a straight up stress test in a number of ways that are more applicable to my daily use and more useful. It's good to know if Safari's caching strategy saves you battery, but as a non-Safari user that often does not refresh from cache I'm not sure I would appreciate buying a laptop advertising X battery and finding it to have changed significantly or be caveated by lots of required settings.
  - lucb1e 10y ago
    Alright, that's a good point.
- HNaTTY 10y ago
  Fair point. You don't measure fuel economy on cars by running them on an oval track with the accelerator pinned.

lucb1e 10y ago

I can see where you're coming from but I disagree. In that case you are testing the battery hardware, while the software actually makes a big difference. Say you have two phones: one with crap software, and one from a company that spends time on writing proper, efficient software. If you run a stress benchmark, they will both be running at 100% CPU all the time and you'll only be measuring how much mAh is in the battery divided by how much power the CPU draws. All of this is information is already available in the product specification. The only reason my Galaxy Note 2's battery life is any good (still the original battery which is, what, 5 years old now?) is because I did software tweaks to keep it from holding wake locks when apps are inactive.

sailfast 10y ago
That makes sense and you're right, if all you're doing is a head-on stress test then just let the math do the talking. I think testing heavy use is probably different than a straight up stress test in a number of ways that are more applicable to my daily use and more useful. It's good to know if Safari's caching strategy saves you battery, but as a non-Safari user that often does not refresh from cache I'm not sure I would appreciate buying a laptop advertising X battery and finding it to have changed significantly or be caveated by lots of required settings.
- lucb1e 10y ago
  Alright, that's a good point.
HNaTTY 10y ago
Fair point. You don't measure fuel economy on cars by running them on an oval track with the accelerator pinned.