Some brands of laptop have less than half the battery life promised by their manufacturers, a study by consumer group Which? has found.<\/p>\n
Only Apple’s Macbook Pro lived up to its 10-hour battery life claim in the tests, which included watching films and using the net via wi-fi.<\/p>\n
Models by Dell, Acer, Lenovo and HP came in with around half the advertised battery life.<\/p>\n
Manufacturers tend to test in “optimum conditions”, one analyst told the BBC.<\/p>\n
“Battery life metrics on consumer electronics devices such as laptops are typically measured in optimum conditions, which maximise performance,” said Ben Wood from CCS Insight.<\/p>\n
“There are lots of variables when it comes to real world use such as how bright the screen is and what applications you are using, which can have a major impact on battery performance.”<\/p>\n
‘Different mileage’<\/strong><\/p>\n Dell also told Which? it was difficult to define average laptop use.<\/p>\n “Every individual uses their PC differently,” it said.<\/p>\n “It’s similar to how different people driving the same car will get different mileage depending on how they drive.”<\/p>\n Which? tested a small number of laptops by seven different manufacturers.<\/p>\n It found that:<\/p>\n Repair firm Geek Squad said it often serviced laptops suffering low battery life within one to two years of purchase.<\/p>\n “We find there is a direct correlation between the amount of software running on the machine at any given time and the life a user should expect from it,” the firm said.<\/p>\n It recommends lowering screen brightness, turning off features such as bluetooth and wi-fi when not in use, and making use of power-saving software, which is installed in many Windows and Mac-based devices, to maximise battery life.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some brands of laptop have less than half the battery life promised by their manufacturers, a study by consumer group Which? has found. Only Apple’s Macbook Pro lived up to its 10-hour battery life claim in the tests, which included watching films and using the net via wi-fi. Models by Dell, Acer, Lenovo and HP […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[106],"tags":[5851],"yoast_head":"\n\n