We haven’t even got McCaslin devices on the market yet and The Register is querying whether Menlow is going to bring enough battery life benefits. I was going to leave this for another day but I’ve got 30 minutes before my wife comes home and a pencil and paper here. Lets have a finger-in-the-air go at predicting Intel battery life for 2008 (this doesn’t apply to VIA-based UMPCs.) The assumption is that Intel reach their targets. [click to read full article]
2006 (typical average utilisation, 7″ screen) – Total 12W.
Battery for 7″ device: 28W/hr = 2.3 hours
2007 (typical average utilisation, 7″ screen) – Total 9W comprising:
- Screen: 1.5W
- HDD: 500mw
- CPU: 2.0W
- GPU+Chipset: 1.5W
- Radios: 1W
- Additional components: 2.5W
Battery for 7″ device: 32W/hr = 3.5hours
2008 (typical average utilisation, 7″ screen) – Total 4.1W
- Screen: 1W
- HDD: 150mw (hybrid flash)
- CPU: 0.5W
- GPU_CS: 0.5W
- Radios: 0.5W
- Additional: 1.5W
Battery for 7″ device: 32W/hr = 8 hours
This calculation is made on the assumption that the device is using best of breed components. That means it would sit at the top of the price bracket for these devices. It also requires operating systems with support for the advanced power saving features. The average device would probably sacrifice some of the power gains to reduce costs or permit design flexibility. My expectation is that mid-market devices will come in at around 6 hours battery life and that we won’t see them until late 2008.
Edit: Note that 6 hours is with a 32wh battery. Smaller devices, especially Intels ‘MIDs’ will have much smaller batteries. Probably around the 15wh mark which will mean 3 hours in-use battery life.
