Benchmarks: Power Draw and Battery Life
Given the faster CPU and meatier GPU, an increase in under-load power draw is to be expected. Conversely, battery life ought to be reduced a fraction...
...yep, no surprises here.
We use a trio of PCMark 10 benchmarks to gauge battery life; Modern Office, which intermittently uses the writing, web browsing and video conferencing workloads from the main PCMark 10 benchmark; Video, which loops a 1080p full-screen movie file for the duration; and Gaming, which uses the common Fire Strike test to stress the GPU until the battery is drained.
In order to make the results comparable between laptops, each system is configured with a balanced power plan, wireless radios disabled, and screen brightness set as close to 120cd/m2 as possible using a calibration device.
It is always a shame to see battery life take a downward turn, yet given the hardware under the hood, and the 4K 17.3in display, a return of almost eight hours in the Modern Office test suggests enough juice to get through a typical working day.
