4 ms·

Is this a problem with processors, or with Chrome? Even on Intel MacBooks, battery life while using Safari is far better than while using Chrome.

Philip-J-Fry 6y ago
I think it's probably more Chrome's fault as Safari is known to be more optimised for battery. Likewise old Edge was pretty good for battery too. I know that if I use the native Windows Store based Netflix app on my laptop (Ryzen 4800u) I get much much longer battery life than if I use Netflix through Chrome. But it's still a long way off what you'd expect from a device with a battery so large compared to a phone. I think the M1 Mac vs Intel Mac battery life comparisons showcase the difference in CPU efficiency the best.
- ascagnel_ 6y ago
  In my experience, Safari (and old Edge) were more willing to let pages crash or limit CPU cycles for the sake of system performance, while Chrome is content to let pages allocate as much RAM and use up as many CPU cycles as they want, letting poorly behaved websites work while sacrificing the rest of the system and battery life.
- Sebb767 6y ago
  > I know that if I use the native Windows Store based Netflix app on my laptop (Ryzen 4800u) I get much much longer battery life than if I use Netflix through Chrome. The native app uses hardware decoding, while the browser one falls back to software decoding, so this is not surprising
pedalpete 6y ago
It's processors. x86 architecture is not as efficient as ARM based, which is why ARM is used in embedded low power devices. Like the common adoption curve, Intel viewed ARM as a toy, that could never compete with their power capabilities. But ARM got better and better every year, and though x86 got marginally better, they weren't being driven by a market that demanded higher performance. ARM caught up, and due to some exceptionally clever engineering by Apple, has surpassed the capabilities of x86. We've seen the same story many times before, electric cars will never be competitive, online shopping will never compete with the in store experience, solar/wind/etc will never compete with coal, digital cameras will never compete with film....etc etc Add your own, there are plenty of examples, but I'm failing to remember others right now.
- pseudosavant 6y ago
  Apple caught up and then surpassed x86. ARM designs are a joke. Compare Surface Pro X to an M1 Mac. If the ARM ISA was inherently so much better it would be easy for Qualcomm and Samsung to release top performance ARM laptops, but they can't. Apple is so far ahead of everyone right now.
  - terrorOf 6y ago
    M1 also uses ARM cpu core.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    > If the ARM ISA was inherently so much better it would be easy for Qualcomm and Samsung to release top performance ARM laptops, but they can't. They simply don't really want. Gets just any top ARM SoC from both, and scale caches, and bus widths to M1's size. The advantage will immediately stop looking so dramatic.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      But that is an argument against ARM and an argument in favor of any processor that is being designed by a large company with lots of capital and good engineers. The ISA doesn't even enter the conversation.
  - pedalpete 6y ago
    Apple's M1 is an ARM processor that has two major benefits over ARM based PCs. 1) Rosetta is FAR more powerful than any translation app on windows. This means that M1 is able to run Mac programs that were built for macOS much more efficiently than windows apps running on ARM. It's amazing how much this piece of software does in making this a smooth transition for apple. 2) The end-to-end pipeline at Apple has let them define the first M1 chip limitations in graphics and memory, and with this, and the shared memory and quick memory access, they're able to blow anything from Qualcomm out of the water. The only way Qualcomm could compete with that chip is if they dictated to the customer "this is the build you're getting, you can't upgrade RAM, or use a different GPU, etc etc. That's just not how they operate.
skybrian 6y ago
Chromebooks do pretty well, apparently? Maybe it has to do with the amount of integration with the OS. > The average Chromebook lasts 9 hours and 58 minutes, according to the data we’ve collected on the Chrome OS devices we’ve reviewed thus far. https://www.laptopmag.com/best-picks/chromebooks-with-the-longest-battery-life-in-2021 https://www.laptopmag.com/best-picks/chromebooks-with-the-lo...
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I have a Chromebook running Linux that can get 7-8 hours on web browsing; integration might be part of it but I don't think it's a major one.
Mindwipe 6y ago
In some cases it's just the inevitable effect of the OS vendor being the browser vendor. For example, DRM video in Safari is decrypted in dedicated low power hardware as the DRM system is in the T2 or M1 chip, because Apple built FairPlay into the hardware. Chrome uses Google's own Widevine, which isn't implemented in hardware, so all the decryption operations are done in software on a Mac (with a subsequent hit on battery life). On a Chromebook Widevine is done in hardware, so the battery is better (and you get trusted with better resolutions by content providers because it's more secure). And if Apple were willing to port Safari to Chromebook's it would suffer an about turn in performance penalty.

Philip-J-Fry 6y ago

I think it's probably more Chrome's fault as Safari is known to be more optimised for battery. Likewise old Edge was pretty good for battery too. I know that if I use the native Windows Store based Netflix app on my laptop (Ryzen 4800u) I get much much longer battery life than if I use Netflix through Chrome. But it's still a long way off what you'd expect from a device with a battery so large compared to a phone. I think the M1 Mac vs Intel Mac battery life comparisons showcase the difference in CPU efficiency the best.

ascagnel_ 6y ago
In my experience, Safari (and old Edge) were more willing to let pages crash or limit CPU cycles for the sake of system performance, while Chrome is content to let pages allocate as much RAM and use up as many CPU cycles as they want, letting poorly behaved websites work while sacrificing the rest of the system and battery life.
Sebb767 6y ago
> I know that if I use the native Windows Store based Netflix app on my laptop (Ryzen 4800u) I get much much longer battery life than if I use Netflix through Chrome. The native app uses hardware decoding, while the browser one falls back to software decoding, so this is not surprising

pedalpete 6y ago

It's processors. x86 architecture is not as efficient as ARM based, which is why ARM is used in embedded low power devices. Like the common adoption curve, Intel viewed ARM as a toy, that could never compete with their power capabilities. But ARM got better and better every year, and though x86 got marginally better, they weren't being driven by a market that demanded higher performance. ARM caught up, and due to some exceptionally clever engineering by Apple, has surpassed the capabilities of x86. We've seen the same story many times before, electric cars will never be competitive, online shopping will never compete with the in store experience, solar/wind/etc will never compete with coal, digital cameras will never compete with film....etc etc Add your own, there are plenty of examples, but I'm failing to remember others right now.

pseudosavant 6y ago
Apple caught up and then surpassed x86. ARM designs are a joke. Compare Surface Pro X to an M1 Mac. If the ARM ISA was inherently so much better it would be easy for Qualcomm and Samsung to release top performance ARM laptops, but they can't. Apple is so far ahead of everyone right now.
- terrorOf 6y ago
  M1 also uses ARM cpu core.
- baybal2 6y ago
  > If the ARM ISA was inherently so much better it would be easy for Qualcomm and Samsung to release top performance ARM laptops, but they can't. They simply don't really want. Gets just any top ARM SoC from both, and scale caches, and bus widths to M1's size. The advantage will immediately stop looking so dramatic.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    But that is an argument against ARM and an argument in favor of any processor that is being designed by a large company with lots of capital and good engineers. The ISA doesn't even enter the conversation.
- pedalpete 6y ago
  Apple's M1 is an ARM processor that has two major benefits over ARM based PCs. 1) Rosetta is FAR more powerful than any translation app on windows. This means that M1 is able to run Mac programs that were built for macOS much more efficiently than windows apps running on ARM. It's amazing how much this piece of software does in making this a smooth transition for apple. 2) The end-to-end pipeline at Apple has let them define the first M1 chip limitations in graphics and memory, and with this, and the shared memory and quick memory access, they're able to blow anything from Qualcomm out of the water. The only way Qualcomm could compete with that chip is if they dictated to the customer "this is the build you're getting, you can't upgrade RAM, or use a different GPU, etc etc. That's just not how they operate.

skybrian 6y ago

Chromebooks do pretty well, apparently? Maybe it has to do with the amount of integration with the OS. > The average Chromebook lasts 9 hours and 58 minutes, according to the data we’ve collected on the Chrome OS devices we’ve reviewed thus far. https://www.laptopmag.com/best-picks/chromebooks-with-the-longest-battery-life-in-2021 https://www.laptopmag.com/best-picks/chromebooks-with-the-lo...

saagarjha 6y ago
I have a Chromebook running Linux that can get 7-8 hours on web browsing; integration might be part of it but I don't think it's a major one.

Mindwipe 6y ago

In some cases it's just the inevitable effect of the OS vendor being the browser vendor. For example, DRM video in Safari is decrypted in dedicated low power hardware as the DRM system is in the T2 or M1 chip, because Apple built FairPlay into the hardware. Chrome uses Google's own Widevine, which isn't implemented in hardware, so all the decryption operations are done in software on a Mac (with a subsequent hit on battery life). On a Chromebook Widevine is done in hardware, so the battery is better (and you get trusted with better resolutions by content providers because it's more secure). And if Apple were willing to port Safari to Chromebook's it would suffer an about turn in performance penalty.