Just read the March issue reviews of Ultrabooks, especially Macbook Airs 11" and 13", and was surprised there was no battery score.
Apple claims 5hrs web browsing for the 11", which would put it at the top of that bunch reviewed and perhaps improved the 70% rating.
Really these are aimed at students (many schools have them as 1:1) and battery life is possibly the most important purchasing factor. If the processors have lower grunt resulting in better battery life then all the better.
I had a 13" recently and battery life was outstanding and compelling compared to the 3hr nonesense that Windows users are inflicted with.
Give us a review of manufacturers and models that offer optional long life batteries. One Dell model comes to mind, offering 10-12hrs.
That was quick...I'm still waiting for mine to come in the mail!
Will have to wait a couple more days before calling ACP again...
Newsagent yesterday.
Hang on a minute, Reg, you are making some statements there that I certainly do not agree with and quite frankly, think are not correct.
First, Apple may claim five hours' battery life "web browsing" but we don't test notebook battery life with web browsing so it does NOT put the Macbook Air at the top of the models we reviewed.
We push notebooks hard with continuous multimedia playback with screens at full brightness when battery testing - NOT the same thing that Apple does so you can't make any inference from it.
Second, the reason there are no MacBook battery scores is that we have not yet developed a Mac version of our UserBench Battery benchmark. It is in the works however, I'm currently flat-stick developing other tools for PC User so it is on the backburner at the moment.
We are reviewing ultrabooks as they become available however, with new Ivy Bridge models coming in the next couple of months, the landscape is about to change again significantly.
Third, I disagree these are being "really aimed at students". The market for ultrabooks will be much wider than that. Also, if you look at the battery life versus performance of the units we tested, you'll see there is no real clear correlation between performance and battery life. I, for one, would not be willing to sacrifice performance just to maximise battery life if it meant having to wait an age for an application to run. Just ask the students who have been stuck with out-dated and out-classed netbooks thanks to various governments and the so-called "education revolution".
There is no revolution when you're stuck waiting for an Atom-powered netbook to power up Adobe Premiere.
I appreciate your enthusiasm but until we are able to accurately test MacBook Air battery life, it would be quite wrong to equate Apple's testing methodology with our own and suggest the MacBook Air comes out on top.
Cheers, Darren.
Sorry but I shouldn't pay $9.95 for a mag review that says N/A in the vital areas. At least I gave people an idea of what is claimed by the manufacturer, and I'll readily admit that claims must be tested.
Your comment on the worth of netbooks in state schools (NSW I think) is something I'm very interested to find info on and I look forward to an expose in PCUser.
Reg, I appreciate your feedback.
We pride ourselves on testing every product, every notebook, every component that comes into PC User Labs - and we do so with a pretty comprehensive suite of benchmarks.
One thing the world isn't too full up of at the moment is cross-platform benchmarks. As the one responsible for benchmark development at PC User, I can assure you each benchmark takes many, many hours. They are extremely difficult to produce and to produce with accurate, repeatable results. PC User pioneered the first Australian-made benchmarks and the first cross-platform benchmarks in our UserBench Encode series. And we're still the only Australian publication that releases its benchmarks for its readers to use at home. (The Feb 2012 issue featured UserBench Image 2 and our latest gaming benchmark, UserBench AvP, for testing the Aliens v Predator DirectX11 benchmark demo).
Yep, I agree - "N/A" isn't ideal but we believe it was better to do that than put in a manufacturer's claim along side tested results, which we think would have been misleading.
We are methodical and deliberate with our benchmark releases because our reviews - and readers - rely on them.
Again, thanks for your feedback - and we'll see what we can do to bring development of a Mac-native battery benchmark forward.
Cheers, Darren.
Oh, and as for the netbook saga, there's no need for an expose, it's been done already in the media - http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/rudd-giveaway-gripes-studen....
Still, it's not exactly brain surgery to figure out Adobe Premiere would struggle on a netbook.
Cheers, Darren.
Not to labour the point but... you've justified yourself giving no Mac Air battery info and criticised me for supplying some, albiet qualified as "web browsing".
Somehow I got the wrong idea that I was paying for a mag of info, not just to read the ads.
So that I don't have to do my own research I'd rather read something like this:
Battery Results UT5 -(untested manufacturer claim).
I'm sure we all appreciate your work, but there's competition for my monthly mag spend, so can the mag really afford to be so precious with review info?
Cheers.
I would have thought that you'd want to pay for correct information, not misleading information.
We provide concrete specifications from manufacturers but not their unsupported claims. Let's face it, it's not exactly in their interest to understate their battery life, and they give precious little detail on their methodology.
On the other hand, our UserBench Battery benchmark is a very tough battery workout that's transparent and the same for every notebook that we test. So I'll stress this again: manufacturers' battery life claims are in no way comparable with our UserBench Battery scores.
That said, we'd much prefer to not have N/As either. Unfortunately, building a benchmark takes many hours of development (and we've only got one Darren!) but we're aiming to have a cross-platform version of UserBench Battery as soon as we can.
Hmmm...this is a hard one.
Darren / Glenn - I'm glad you guys brought the PC User Apps / Benchmarks up. I was thinking the other day on how blessed I am to be able to purchase PC User and use the in-house apps. While I don't really use the benchmarks, the audio / video apps are awesome. I can't believe how easy they are. The only problem I have is that one day I'll wake up and think "I need to install this PC User app to do this project." I then go to look for it and can't find it / or remember which one it is (RockPod, TVRip, etc). Keep up the TOP work, please...seriously!
I pretty much agree with what you guys are saying, I just have one question: I agree that testing battery life by web browsing is a little light on - can't comment on continuous multimedia playback as I can't remember what most reviewers do. However, don't MOST reviewers test using 70% brightness and WLAN on? I know there isn't a "standard" as such, I was just thinking that if PC User tested the same way as other reviewers, it would make it easier to compare products across the board.
Glenn, have you checked with Intel to see when they are releasing Darren Yates 2.0 - he is a MACHINE after all!
Reg - I see what you are saying, but I see a couple of points here:
- Apple marketing exaggerates a little bit. The amount of times I have seen in successive releases that Apple states the graphics in the new Mac is 5x times faster than the previous generation, we should've had virtual reality back in the day of the Apple Lisa!
- PC User is a PC magazine. Kudos should go to them for the amount of information they provide on Apple - far more than any other PC magazine. It doesn't help now, but give it some time and I reckon Darren will have the Apple benchmarks ready to go soon, probably before any other PC magazine does.
- You have to remember that reviews, as professional as they are, are still a personal view. For example, PC User benchmarks are different to everyone else's. Also, there are products that get PC User Best Buy that I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot-pole out of experience. I use PC User to help decide what the best item is to buy. Sometimes, I purposely buy the fourth-rated item in the review because it's not the rating that Darren has provided, but rather what he has written. For example, I might skip the first item because I don't like the brand, the second because of poor battery life, the third because of poor quality, but the fourth might specifically mention a very important feature that I require. So even though it is rated at 70%, I would still buy it over the one rated at 95%.
I guess what I am saying, is that it is open to interpretation. Another example - Darren has marked the rating down on many PC's because of a "paltry" 320GB HDD. Now, I don't know about you, but I currently have 1 x 80GB HDD in my main PC. It has been less than six months that 80GB's has started to become small. HDD's matter to most people, not really to me. Other people might rate a laptop poorly because it only has 2GB RAM, when it's nearest competitor is $500 more. Now, when upgrading to 4GB RAM costs less than $100 and is an easy upgrade, surely the 2GB laptop should be rated higher than the one with 4GB?
Well said young fella, though on your last point you seem to be saying rate things on their potential rather than what you get when you buy it. Seems very grey.
My final word is I never suggested manufacturer claims equal reality, merely that a ballpark figure is better than nothing. Likewise I didn't suggest all Ultrabooks are aimed at students, I was discussing the Mac Air 11".
Hi Reg,
I apologise if my last post seemed confusing. I understood what you were saying about manufacturer claims and ultrabooks aimed at students.
If I was to GUESS the TARGET MARKET for Ultrabooks, I would say it would be between 18-30. This age being uni students and young executives / corporates. That's my OPINION based on my very quick reasoning and the little that I have seen. But target market doesn't mean that the manufacturer doesn't care about anyone else, which is what you were saying.
With that ballpark figure, I see where you are coming from and I also imagine that there would be a lot of people that would find that beneficial. But, the cons outweigh the pros. But for something even as "straightforward" as battery life, you have a couple of issues to start off with. First of all, every one tests battery life differently, and each have different uses. Take the iPhone 4...the reviews said you had to charge it every night, meanwhile I have never charged it more than twice in the same week, because I don't run it as hard as they do. So therefore it's a guessing game to start off with, and to get a better idea on how long the battery lasts, you need to find a review that tests closely to the way that you use it. (I know you MORE than know this, but this is a forum after all and can be of benefit to others...provided that there are actually people that come to this site and use the search function!).
The main problem though, is that it would cause a massive confusion for readers, and then if you make an exception for battery life, people will start wanting you to use it for other tests. Can you imagine a POTENTIAL review of the Acer Ultrabook versus a Macbook Air that goes like this:
Acer - FPS on Crysis XXX, Battery life XXX, Video Encoding XXX, Audio Encoding XXX, etc.
Macbook - FPS (Crysis did not run, so we had to run another game), Battery life (estimated by the manufacturer, testing process unknown), Video Encoding (had to use a Mac program as the program we use for testing everything doesn't run on Mac), Audio Encoding (had to use a Mac program as the program we use for testing everything doesn't run on Mac), etc.
This is an exaggeration of course, but I hope it helps to make my point: The strength of a review is to try and keep everything the same as possible. The more things you twist and turn to try and fill in every column, and the harder you make it for readers to follow. Just like making sure a report is formatted the same throughout to make it easy to follow. And if it gets to the point where it gets confusing, readers will start to get angry with PC User and leave in droves. Not to mention, you will need to start looking for the testing process of EACH review to see what is "real" and what is "marketing hype".
The other thing is that PC User is here to give a general, unbiased review of products and bring it to our attention. If readers need more information on something or need it to fulfil certain requirements, it is up to READERS to make sure that the product is for them.
As far as rating things on potential, that's not what I am saying. What I am saying is this (let's take me for example). Let's say that I am shopping for a ready-built PC. I open up the latest PC User magazine and it has a review on 10 x ready-built PC's. The first one is a PC User Best Buy with a rating of 95% with 6TB of WD Black hard drive, 12GB of RAM and costs $2000. The fifth one down is the same machine but with a rating of 70% with a 320GB WD Black hard drive and 4GB of RAM and costs $1700.
Everyone would agree that the first system is definitely better value. The way I look at it though, is that I wouldn't use up the 320GB hard drive, let alone the 6TB, and I could always add another 4GB of RAM for an extra $50. So while everyone would rate the first system as better value, I PERSONALLY would find more value on the fifth system BASED ON MY NEEDS.
Hope that clears it up.
Man, my posts are getting longer!
I might have to change my name to Granddad. Or perhaps I can take up journalism - I won't have issues with articles being to short. Mind you, my writing leaves a lot to be desired!
Just realised installing Win7 by BootCamp is a way to use the same benchmarks.