Do you have a laptop or netbook with average or poor laptop battery lifetime? If that’s the case, you might want to use an Internet browser that’s able to take advantage of the power saving features included with Windows 7 or Windows 8. We tested all the major browsers and had some very surprising results. Read on to learn which browser is best at squeezing more time out of your laptop’s battery. Is it Google Chrome? Is it Internet Explorer? Or is it Firefox?The Testing Procedure
For this comparison, I tested all the major browsers: Internet Explorer 9, Internet Explorer 10 beta (included in Windows 8 Consumer Preview), Google Chrome 18, Mozilla Firefox 11 and Opera 11.62. No addons were installed.
I used my two and a half years old laptop - an HP Pavillion dv7 2185dx with the following hardware configuration: Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q9000 @ 2.00 GHz, 6 GB of RAM DDR2, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650. This model is marketed as a desktop replacement and ACER Aspire 5740 Laptop Battery time was never its strength, and it is even less of a strength now that a few years have passed. I can barely squeeze two hours of battery time when using it. Therefore, understanding which browser to use, so that my battery lasts as long as possible, was important to me.The tests were made on a clean Windows 7 installation, with all Windows Updates installed and no other software than the browsers being tested. I used the Power saver Power plan. I had to modify its settings so that it did not turn off the hard disk and put the computer to sleep only when the battery reached its critical level.
Since Internet Explorer 10 beta is available only in Windows 8, I used a clean installation of Windows 8 Consumer Preview on the same laptop. The same power plan was used, using the same modifications to its default values as in Windows 7.
The benchmark used was the Peacekeeper acer laptop battery test, which tests your browser until your battery runs down and Windows puts your computer to sleep. I ran this test at least three times for each browser and recorded the results. Some of the test runs were unsuccessful due to various reasons: the Internet connection stopped working for a short while during some tests, Peacekeeper was not able to record the results of some tests while in other runs I encountered browser crashes.
For each browser I recorded the results of three successful test runs and made the necessary averages to make the comparison between results.
Observations: Google Chrome - Very Unstable & Internet Explorer 10 beta - Constant Results
Out of all browsers, Google Chrome stood out as the most troublesome. Most of the tests I made with this browser did not finish successfully. First, I had issues with the browser crashing in the middle of testing. I reinstalled Chrome and the problem was fixed. Then, many tests simply did not end well and Peacekeeper was not able to record the results, for unknown reasons. Also, during most tests, the screen of my laptop was becoming active at random intervals, as if mouse or keyboard movements were detected. I found this strange, as my laptop was simply sitting on a table, not bothered by anyone. This lowered the ACER Aspire 5740-5513 Laptop Battery lifetime when testing Google Chrome, as the screen consumed more energy than in the tests made with other browsers. Again, the cause for this behavior is unknown and it was encountered only when testing Google Chrome.I noticed that Internet Explorer 10 beta had the most constant results. The variations between tests were extremely small, both in terms of the average performance score and how long the APPLE A1175 battery lasted. For example, the difference between the best and the worst result was only of 4 minutes. The least constant browser was Mozilla Firefox. The difference between the worst and the best test result was 21 minutes.
All browsers, except Google Chrome, ran the tests without any major issues and were very stable in their behavior.
Test Results: Internet Explorer Delivers the Most Battery Lifetime
Below you can see the averages of the results I obtained during my tests.
If you want to choose the browser that gives you the maximum battery lifetime then your best bet is Internet Explorer 9 or 10, depending on the operating system you are using (Windows 7 or Windows 8). Both browsers had very similar results, delivering an average ACER Aspire 4736Z battery lifetime of 108 minutes and 104 minutes respectively.
If you look at the average performance score, the winner is Google Chrome, by a huge margin (126% better) when compared to Internet Explorer 10. However, you get the worst possible battery lifetime out of all browsers (21% lower). It seems that Google Chrome doesn’t take advantage of the power saving features included with Windows 7 and maxes out all the resource available.
However, if you want a mix between browsing performance and battery lifetime, your best choice is Opera. Opera was always close to Internet Explorer 10 and 9 in terms of Presario CQ50 Laptop Battery lifetime (only 7% lower) while delivering browsing performance that’s 78% better.
Conclusion
If I were to pick the winners, they would be Internet Explorer and Opera. Depending on what matters most to you, they are your best choice while browsing the web in battery mode.Before you close this article, please share your experience with using different browsers while running on Laptop batteries for Dell Latitude D500. Are the results above similar to what you have experienced?
Comments
Do you not suspect that your
john3347 (not verified) - Mon, 04/02/2012 - 21:43
Do you not suspect that your observations concerning Google Chrome in this test are caused by Google's personal information and browsing site harvesting procedures? Google is NOT your friend
I never see a comparison
Profesor Yeow (not verified) - Mon, 04/02/2012 - 23:00
I never see a comparison about the PA3465U-1BRS battery of a laptop from the point of view of browser. Good guide! Thanks!
(I use opera)
(I use opera)
I tend to agree with
mad.madrasi (not verified) - Tue, 04/03/2012 - 09:58
I tend to agree with @john3347. No other browser, especially FX or IE have anything like 'Googleupdate' which constantly runs in the background. Without shutting it off, say by using MS Autoruns or any other, will not give the correct picture, technically. But in real life, your test results offer good guidance. Good work.
That said, I suspect 99% of people run Chrome with Gupdate on and don't disable it. I do it as I still use a 7 year old 845GLVA with Celeron 1.7 and 1GB of DDR1. BTW, even though I have a legal copy of Win7, I can't install and use it in this home PC because win7 doesn't recognize the 845GLVA MB onboard graphics card and the MB doesn't have a PCI-E slot!
:-(
That said, I suspect 99% of people run Chrome with Gupdate on and don't disable it. I do it as I still use a 7 year old 845GLVA with Celeron 1.7 and 1GB of DDR1. BTW, even though I have a legal copy of Win7, I can't install and use it in this home PC because win7 doesn't recognize the 845GLVA MB onboard graphics card and the MB doesn't have a PCI-E slot!
:-(
I did a test of my own after
Renji (not verified) - Tue, 04/03/2012 - 15:07
I did a test of my own after reading this. On my year old HP laptop, running Windows 7, I was able to get around 3 hours running Google Chrome 19 and billy music player in the background. With Opera I got close to 3½ hours. All other background apps, WiFi and Bluetooth were disabled.
Hi, thanks for the
VirGnarus (not verified) - Tue, 04/03/2012 - 18:03
Hi, thanks for the informative study. However, in the interest of improvement, I'd like to point out that there's a flaw with including IE10 in this test set.
Win8 has more than just certain registry tweaks and settings to differentiate it from Win7 in terms of power management. There are fundamental differences in the OS design and structure that were intentionally done to improve power usage, given that Microsoft's intent on Win8 was to use it to help penetrate the tablet market. No amount of registry editing and fiddling with power management settings will change this. It may look similar to Win7 on the outside, but internally there's been a good number of alterations.
Because of this, IE10's power management improvements do not stem so much from IE10 itself but rather from the OS it is built and running on. To include it in the test set without testing the other browsers in the Win8 environment is akin to saying, "Opera on Linux uses less energy than IE9 in Win7, therefore Opera is superior to IE9." Even if you do decide to run the other browsers in the Win8 environment, it'll be evident they - being designed for Windows 7 - will not be able to take advantage of the new OS as much as IE10, which is designed specifically to cater to Win8.
It's up to you, but I personally recommend adding IE10 merely as a side note or an extra to give people an idea how Win8 also improves power management, but not to include it in the original test set.
Win8 has more than just certain registry tweaks and settings to differentiate it from Win7 in terms of power management. There are fundamental differences in the OS design and structure that were intentionally done to improve power usage, given that Microsoft's intent on Win8 was to use it to help penetrate the tablet market. No amount of registry editing and fiddling with power management settings will change this. It may look similar to Win7 on the outside, but internally there's been a good number of alterations.
Because of this, IE10's power management improvements do not stem so much from IE10 itself but rather from the OS it is built and running on. To include it in the test set without testing the other browsers in the Win8 environment is akin to saying, "Opera on Linux uses less energy than IE9 in Win7, therefore Opera is superior to IE9." Even if you do decide to run the other browsers in the Win8 environment, it'll be evident they - being designed for Windows 7 - will not be able to take advantage of the new OS as much as IE10, which is designed specifically to cater to Win8.
It's up to you, but I personally recommend adding IE10 merely as a side note or an extra to give people an idea how Win8 also improves power management, but not to include it in the original test set.
The issue is that it doesn't
VirGnarus (not verified) - Wed, 04/04/2012 - 16:41
The issue is that it doesn't have a level playing field for all of them, with IE10 being isolated to a completely different OS. If the other browsers were also tested in Win8 that would be another thing, but you make no mention that you conducted that in your study. Furthermore, you stated that IE10 was the best browser to use for Windows 8, without presenting tests on the other browsers in Win8 to validate that statement.
Your attempt may have been to display IE10 separately from the rest in that it involves Windows 8, but it is very difficult to get that vibe from your article. It's just the way you presented it that made it appear like it was playing at the same level as all the other browsers. I would just recommend clarifying your intent of adding IE10 into it and explain that there's more behind IE10's power-saving performance than just the browser itself, to prevent people from being unintentionally misled.
Your attempt may have been to display IE10 separately from the rest in that it involves Windows 8, but it is very difficult to get that vibe from your article. It's just the way you presented it that made it appear like it was playing at the same level as all the other browsers. I would just recommend clarifying your intent of adding IE10 into it and explain that there's more behind IE10's power-saving performance than just the browser itself, to prevent people from being unintentionally misled.
Another browser war is
mad.madrasi (not verified) - Wed, 04/04/2012 - 21:06
Another browser war is brewing. /LOL/ I broadly agree with @virgnarus. But to defend @ciprian, I don't think he suggested that IE9 or 10 is the 'best' browser for a Win system. I think what this study and @ciprian suggests (or what I believe they suggest) is that IE9 seems to be the 'least' power consuming browser on a Win system.
To put my 2 cents in - the day is long past when a browser is being used just for browsing. In today's world a browser is much more than that. With the way shown by Firefox in its awesome power with extensions, and Chrome too, they are sure to consume much more than, if I may say so the 'lame' IE.
That said, in an old laptop on its last legs, @ciprian's study does indicate that IE9 is the way to go, if and that is a major if, you don't have a way to re-charge the laptop on the go.
Frankly, for us in the 3rd world, it is a good piece of benchmark. In an emergency, even with a modern laptop, if there is a probable chance of being unable to recharge for some time (it does happen, as when the Tropical Cyclone THANE hit near Pondicherry, and large swaths were left without power for days), we should forget about the jing-bang of other browsers and fall back to IE.
To put my 2 cents in - the day is long past when a browser is being used just for browsing. In today's world a browser is much more than that. With the way shown by Firefox in its awesome power with extensions, and Chrome too, they are sure to consume much more than, if I may say so the 'lame' IE.
That said, in an old laptop on its last legs, @ciprian's study does indicate that IE9 is the way to go, if and that is a major if, you don't have a way to re-charge the laptop on the go.
Frankly, for us in the 3rd world, it is a good piece of benchmark. In an emergency, even with a modern laptop, if there is a probable chance of being unable to recharge for some time (it does happen, as when the Tropical Cyclone THANE hit near Pondicherry, and large swaths were left without power for days), we should forget about the jing-bang of other browsers and fall back to IE.
Personally I went from IE8 to
mad.madrasi (not verified) - Tue, 04/03/2012 - 20:33
Personally I went from IE8 to FF (about 4 years back) to exclusive Chrome (for last 2 years or so). Can't even think of IE except in an emergency because my home PC is still stuck on WinXP & IE8 with attendant security holes.
But here is a nice youtube video on the subject - if nothing else the lyrics and the music is great and good 3-1/2 minutes of fun. I guess even @ciprian would have a laugh at this.
But here is a nice youtube video on the subject - if nothing else the lyrics and the music is great and good 3-1/2 minutes of fun. I guess even @ciprian would have a laugh at this.
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