Remember my in-tent Samsung Q1 Ultra test? 9hrs battery life on the Samsung Q1 with 25% backlight? An average drain of 6.9 watts. It was impressive and since I blew up the Q1 Ultra doing some solar-charging tests, I’ve been missing those 5, 6 and 7hr figures. I was just getting over the trauma until I read this article about another Samsung Mobile product with great battery life.
Notebook Magazine have just done a full set of battery life tests on the NC10 Netbook and it looks like Samsung have once again worked their magic. The tests included continuous Wifi-on web browsing in battery saving mode which is a very reasonable test to be doing. Far better than the misleading 2001 Jeita test and much more ‘real-life’ than the Battery Eater Pro ‘turn everything and and run it at full-steam’ approach. The NC10 returned…
- 12% screen brightness: 7hrs 34mins representing an average drain of about 7.6w which is just a little bit more than what I saw on the Q1 Ultra.
- 50% screen brightness, the duration dropped to 6hrs 30mins which is an average 8.7W.
- 100% screen brightness, the test result reduced to 4hrs 38 minutes which is 12.3 watts drain.
More after the break…
What it highlights is something I’ve been saying for years. The CPU power drain is not the most important element in determining a devices overall efficiency. In these 10" screens, even the latest LED technology backlight can take a lot of drain. In this case, nearly 5W at full power which is nearly 50% of the total power drain of the whole PC! Obviously, as screens get smaller, the LED power required drops and when you get to a 4.8" screen, you’ll see 1-1.5W average drain. If you were to attache that Samsung battery to the Aigo MID, you would see close to 20 hours battery life under similar conditions as the Wifi-on drain is about 3W.
As we move to lower and lower power processors, screens and other components need to follow and the OEM that has access to the best components and the best engineers is always going to have an advantage. Samsung keep proving that.
So how’s the rest of the NC10? I was watching a live session at EeePCnews.de a few evenings ago and it was clear that people are really interested in this one. 3000 people watched Sascha, the lead guy there, do live testing and as the session went on you could almost sense people hitting the buy button as Sascha reported positive comment after positive comment! LaptopMag calls it their ‘netbook of choice’ right now. From what I’ve seen, I have no reason to doubt it.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:26 pm
I have read tons of reviews of all the latest netbooks but have not bought any of them until now. I just ordered mine from Clove UK and I can’t wait to get my hands on it. Excellent battery life, good keyboard and also a much more high-end looking design compared to the other netbooks. It’s a no-brainer, this netbook beats all the other competitors including the MSI Wind, Asus 1000H, Asus S101, LG X110, you name it – the Samsung NC10 is better in just about every aspect.
October 31st, 2008 at 10:13 pm
I’d like to see an equally well-engineered 9″ model. With 3G (and touchscreen if possible).
November 1st, 2008 at 3:02 am
its silly to judge PC’s battery life spans by their brightness levels, 1 manufactures 50% brightness isnt necessarily the same as another manufactures “50% brightness”. there needs to be a scientific standard for brightness levels across all manufactures so that battery life can be judged fairly.
DavidC1 Reply:
November 1st, 2008 at 6:55 am
Look here: http://www.crhc.uiuc.edu/~mahesri/research/PACS_paper.pdf
14.1 inch screen with possibly not using LED backlighting uses less power than a 10 inch screen that uses LED backlighting. The 14.1 inch screen only uses 4.4W of power while the NC10′s 10 inch screen consumes over 5W.
I’d think technologies like LED backlighting is geared for better brightness and readability than battery life. You are wrong if you think they can achieve both and this is the proof.
Of course its true that CPU isn’t the biggest power consumption when its at almost idle mode suring the web. The motherboard PCB that holds all the components use not insignificant amounts of power and so does the power supply and the chip that controls power flow.
Which is why one of the main focuses for Menlow and Moorestown was for the power control IC.
November 1st, 2008 at 3:34 am
Now you quote 5W figure for the 10 inch screen. That tells me these LED backlighting devices aren’t efficient than previous gen ones with different backlighting tech.
Look here:
http://www.crhc.uiuc.edu/~mahesri/research/PACS_paper.pdf
Somebody has done extensive testing for power consumption for a laptop. This one has 14.1 inch screen yet it only uses 4.4W with full screen brightness. You cannot judge that a 5.6 inch screen will have half the power consumption of a 11.2 inch screen.
These LED backlighting technology isn’t there to save power, its there to increase brightness with the goal of using similar power.
November 1st, 2008 at 6:51 am
According to here: http://www.crhc.uiuc.edu/~mahesri/research/PACS_paper.pdf
The 14.1 inch screen consumes just 4.4W with full brightness.
My impression is that the LED backlighting isn’t aimed for lower power consumption, but rather brighter and better to read screens. The 14.1 inch screen that is likely not using LED backlighting is far more efficient than a 10-inch LED backlit screen.
Of course it isn’t about CPUs only. Even the PCB that holds the CPUs and other chips consumes power and so does the power supply and the chip that manages power.
Are we going the wrong way for power efficiency?
Chippy Reply:
November 2nd, 2008 at 10:33 pm
just released your comments from autospam so there might be duplicates David.
November 1st, 2008 at 9:19 pm
True, you can’t compare different computers – but you can test NC10′s battery life with different settings, as was done here. *If* we assume 40-50% brightness setting is often good enough, we could expect 6-7 hours out of it.
November 2nd, 2008 at 3:20 pm
I love this netbook too and I’d say its hands down the most popular machine in the market at the moment. I have to admit though I really LOVE the HP Mini 1000. It has a couple of glaring flaws but once the 6-cell is available and cheap 3rd party VGA-Out adaptors hit eBay this thing will take off.
I will admit Samsung have hit the nail on the head in more than a couple of areas and the battery life is astounding. Nice analysis on the power drain.
ProDigit Reply:
November 2nd, 2008 at 7:00 pm
they seem to go from 399 Euro on ebay.de
ProDigit Reply:
November 2nd, 2008 at 7:01 pm
the one thing I don’t like about the HP is the bad placement of the mouse buttons (L & R of the pad, instead of on the right or bottom).
Electric Vagabond Reply:
November 3rd, 2008 at 4:24 am
Yeah that does suck but the touchpad looks bigger than the tiny one on the NC10 so its a tradeoff