Battery Life Question

[Deviatorz]

I have the i5 dGPU 256GB SSD version of the SB. I have read online on reddit that most people get about 10+ hours on their SB while I only get about 6-7 hours. Is the 10+ hours for light use (word processing, light browsing) only? I do watch a couple hours of youtube intermittently throughout the 7 hours I get so does that make a such a huge difference (4 hours less)? I don't have any background apps running (no AV, on balanced battery setting). Or is there a problem with my battery? My brightness is on medium and never go on high. No background downloading.

Edit: I do use Chrome to browse websites and I heard it does drain battery, but apparently they new version 53 addresses most of that battery issues.

 

[jnjroach]

Chrome will reduce you battery life between 25-50%....

 

[Deviatorz]

Chrome will reduce you battery life between 25-50%....

Is Chrome really that bad still? I guess I'll try using Edge to see if there's a difference.

 

[jnjroach]

Is Chrome really that bad still? I guess I'll try using Edge to see if there's a difference.

They have promised for well over two years to fix it....it shows up as fixed in some canary builds but for whatever (Ad Revenue) reason it seems not to make it into production....

 

[Deviatorz]

They have promised for well over two years to fix it....it shows up as fixed in some canary builds but for whatever (Ad Revenue) reason it seems not to make it into production....

I'm curious about the ad revenue part you mentioned. How does that affect the battery life? something with constantly sending browsing and tracking info from our end to them?

so im guessing you're using Edge mainly for light browsing then?

 

[jnjroach]

I'm curious about the ad revenue part you mentioned. How does that affect the battery life? something with constantly sending browsing and tracking info from our end to them?

so im guessing you're using Edge mainly for light browsing then?

That is part of it, 89% of Google's income comes from Ads so one of those delivery mechanisms is the Chrome Browser, they want it to be the fastest browser on the market, so they cheat - the keep Chrome loaded in memory and residing in L1 Cache taking CPU Interrupts constantly thus reducing your battery life by 25-50%. When they remove the cheats their overall performance plummets.

Yes, I use Edge for all browsing (not sure what light browsing is).

 

[Wayne Orwig]

I use chrome on an older slow laptop. It runs well fast, but it keeps the processor busy and the fans spinning.
On the Surface Book (and my older Surface Pro), I use Edge 100% of the time. It feels lean and efficient. Though I have encountered a few glitches, it mostly works well for me.

 

[wynand32]

I'd love to switch to 100% Edge, unfortunately, I use Grammarly extensively which doesn't yet have an Edge plug-in. That's likely the case for many people--love Chrome or hate it, you simply can't do the same things in Edge that you can do in Chrome.

 

[Deviatorz]

That is part of it, 89% of Google's income comes from Ads so one of those delivery mechanisms is the Chrome Browser, they want it to be the fastest browser on the market, so they cheat - the keep Chrome loaded in memory and residing in L1 Cache taking CPU Interrupts constantly thus reducing your battery life by 25-50%. When they remove the cheats their overall performance plummets.

Yes, I use Edge for all browsing (not sure what light browsing is).

Light as in just browsing webpages consisting mostly of text and images, nothing youtube thats 4K or HD. What they do is truly sneaky.....

I use chrome on an older slow laptop. It runs well fast, but it keeps the processor busy and the fans spinning.
On the Surface Book (and my older Surface Pro), I use Edge 100% of the time. It feels lean and efficient. Though I have encountered a few glitches, it mostly works well for me.

I'd love to switch to 100% Edge, unfortunately, I use Grammarly extensively which doesn't yet have an Edge plug-in. That's likely the case for many people--love Chrome or hate it, you simply can't do the same things in Edge that you can do in Chrome.

I have been using Chrome and FF for a long time now. There are so many extensions that I have on my chrome that I don't want to give up but the battery life issue is too concerning not to change. I tested my use with Edge and I got a couple extra hours out of it so it does make a difference. I guess I'll leave chrome for my desktop and Edge for the SB. I sync all my files with dropbox so its on both computers.