Don’t you ever feel that even with your brand new electronic devices you don’t get the battery time promised in the advertisements? You might blame it on a hunch, or maybe difference in your style of usage, but a report by a consumer affairs publication”Which?”, stating that there might be something more deep-seated to this problem.
According to tests by Which?, almost every laptop makers overstate their battery time in their ads, and some even have the audacity to flaunt double the amount of time they last.
“Manufacturers are missing their claims not by minutes, but by hours,” said Which?
Which? tested 67 laptop models from Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, Apple, Asus and Toshiba and shockingly concluded that HP and Dell are the biggest overstaters, with Apple being the only manufacturer that is close to its claims.
The testing constituted examination of each laptop model at least three times, with the laptops being used to browse the internet using WiFi until the battery was fully drained.
“We believe that these tests are representative of the real world use that a laptop would get,” the researchers at Which? said. “As the figures we arrived at are often drastically different to the manufacturer claims, we have to wonder how their estimates are arrived at.”
Three Apple laptops were found to have the claimed battery time of 10 hours, while the biggest discrepancy came from HP which didn’t even make half of its claimed time of 10 hours.
Dell and Toshiba were close to HP, while Asus, Acer, and Lenovo being more truthful in their claims. Asus laptops gave a battery time of nearly seven hours out of a claimed 10, while Acer gave six hours from an estimated eight. Every other manufacturers’ claims ranged from 6 to 10 hours, but all of them on average gave between four and a half and five hours of battery time.
Only Dell and HP responded when reached for comment on the findings, with HP saying that their battery tests assess “real” use that includes Microsoft Office, and the battery timings can vary from model to model.
“It’s difficult to give a specific battery life expectation that will directly correlate to all customer usage behaviours because every individual uses their PC differently,” said Dell. “It’s similar to how different people driving the same car will get different gas mileage depending on how they drive.”
Have you ever felt being cheated out of the promised battery time on any of your devices? Which device do you use?
Comment below!
Show me test results of 67 laptop models.