The results I got were both expected and quite revealing: 13-inch MBP Battery Life Unlike the test I ran in the last review, I used IE8 and Windows Media Player 11 in Windows 7 while I used Safari/iTunes in OS X. Windows 7 was configured to maximize battery life, running in its power saving mode. The reason I chose these two is simple: I wanted one where the system spent a good amount of time in an idle state (up to 20 seconds between web page loads in the web browsing test) and another where the system was constantly busy (with no hardware XviD offload, the CPU has much less downtime). I ran two tests under Windows 7, our light wireless web browsing test and our XviD playback test. Apparently the latest version of Boot Camp improves Windows 7 battery life, but I like having numbers to back up unverified claims. I ran a few more tests with the MacBook Pro under Windows 7 to see what the final tally was. Put them both under Vista and they are quite similar. It has a similar configuration in terms of battery capacity and CPU power draw to the MacBook Air, yet gets about half the battery life under Windows Vista as the Air did under OS X. The best reference point I've got is still my old Thinkpad X300. I've pointed OS X's battery life advantages out before, but this is one of those things that's difficult to compare since there's only one brand of computer that runs OS X. Other than running Safari in 64-bit mode, the best way to hurt battery life on your MacBook Pro is to throw Windows 7 on it.
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