This ground-breaking integration of Windows 8 and PC hardware will change the way you use a PC and it’s likely to be an Ultrabook-exclusive for much of 2013 and 2014. Connected Standby is ‘on’ for Windows 8 apps when the PC is ‘off.’ It means you can run Windows 8 applications like Skype to provide voice and video services when your PC is in your bag, and much more.
There’s an Ultrabook battery report out from the Electronics TakeBack Coalition – a company that “promotes green design and responsible recycling in the electronics industry” and it doesn’t look too good. Only 2 Ultrabooks have been highlighted as having removable batteries but there’s a different side to this story that hasn’t been considered by the ETBC.
Report PDF here.
I’m not a fan of wireless charging. I love the idea of cable-less operation but the inefficiencies far outweigh the advantages for me. Maybe I’m just too focused on mobile operation though because I agree, there’s a case for desk-top charging while working. Even though, wouldn’t it be easier to just have a separate charging mat?
Intel’s Core processors dynamically adjust the speed of your Ultrabook’s CPU to give you power when you need it and battery savings when you don’t. The battery savings come when your Core processor intelligently clocks itself down to the minimum level during tasks that don’t require much power. For instance, as I write this and listen to a song in the background my processor is in ‘Energy Saver’ mode where unneeded cores are disabled to save power and active cores are clocked down. Ensuring that your Ultrabook is correctly downclocking and entering Energy Saver mode is vital to achieving maximum battery life. Inefficient programs or processes running in the background of your Ultrabook could be preventing you from getting the most from your battery; this guide will show you how to get rid of them.
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There have been a couple of Ultrabook battery-related news items in the last few months. Both, I believe, stem from what was talked about at Intel’s IDF event in Beijing. The first article highlighted how Intel introduced a standard size battery. The most recent article mentions the cylindrical 16650 type cell, a smaller version of the very common Li-Ion cell found in removable laptop battery packs. “Intel Hopes New Batteries Can Reduce Ultrabook Cost.” said the article title.
Most of what is going on is summarised in this slide.
It’s time for some extreme testing. Seriously, skip to the summary if you just want to know if the Lenovo U300s has good, average or poor battery life. Stay with us if you want to learn more about how efficient this neat little Ultrabook is. We’ve completed a suite of tests here that we hope gives you an idea of how the battery life would work out for your use case.
In summary we were a little disappointed in the Lenovo U300s we have here. Background power usage is much higher than many other Ultrabooks and the screen requires a lot of power to make it bright enough to use. The U300S has a relatively large battery which helps to provide good battery life figures despite the so-so efficiency. Turbo seems to work well and cooling performance is good. The fan is there when needed but doesn’t give us any nasty surprises.
Intel have just presented details of a Wireless Charging solution for Ultrabooks at IDF Beijing. They see a big potential market and look to have made good progress on a hard/soft solution that takes into account power considerations and regulatory requirements. Patents have been applied for!
Early in January I put forward an article which highlighted the differences between the ‘ultra low voltage’ CPUs you get in Ultrabooks and the ‘low voltage’ CPUs you get in many laptops. I gave some comparison figures for two devices in different usage scenarios by measuring ‘system’ power drain and it was only in the high-end tests where we saw the ULV processor being significantly more efficient. In this article I continue the testing and compare the LV and ULV cores directly. The results are blow.
Part 1 – Ultrabook ULV vs Notebook Mobile CPUs
Measuring ‘system’ drain on two different systems isn’t the most scientific of tests so a discussion broke out in the comments about how we could measure a true difference in efficiency between ULV and LV processors and whether it could be possible to run low-voltage processors at slower clockrates and get the same efficiency as a ULV processor.
The theory says ‘No.’ If you run a CPU at the same frequency but with a higher voltage, the power usage goes up.
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