Notebook batteries

Vista drains notebook batteries, manufacturers revolt

Microsoft attempted to improve power management for laptops in Vista but they didn’t exactly succeed. Battery life on laptops from most standpoints is much worse on Vista than it would be using XP. One feature of Vista is responsible for this all by itself.
The new user interface called Aero Glass with its transparency effects, fade effects and minimize/maximize effects takes a toll on battery life. Not only does it require slightly more memory but requires use of the video card to render correctly. The acceleration features of the video card are being used more and therefore battery life is decreased.
There are several ways to combat this if you installed Vista on your laptop. Set the power settings to “Power Saver” or disable Aero Glass completely. According to Cnet most manufacturers of laptops are disenchanted with the power settings present in Vista just because it seems to drain the battery no matter what users do to it. Everyone from Acer to Toshiba is implementing their own custom power options based on the laptop Vista is installed on.
With Aero Glass turned off battery life improves markedly either equaling or surpassing the battery life on Vista. Vista has some new power saving modes too such as “Sleep” but these pose a problem for me, after resuming, CPU usage stays at 50% on my Core Duo processor and I don’t know why. That in and of itself kills battery life, restarting reduces the battery life even more to eliminate the problem and I’m right back where I started with less battery life.
It’s possible for me to get about 2 hours out of my Aspire 5670 laptop with Vista while running Aero Glass on it. I have not tried disabling it to see what would happen because Aero Glass is just enchanting. I’ve never really needed more than 2 hours anyway, either that or I’ve just gotten used to living with battery life limitations.