Intel has been spending gazillions building chips that suck less and less juice, then crowing that its chips last longer than AMD's, according to something called the MobileMark 2007 benchmark. AMD claims the MobileMark 2007 benchmark doesn't reflect how actual humans use actual computers and wants the industry to adopt new ways to measure battery technology (which sucks, by the way, if I haven't made that clear).
Rob Enderle, a longtime industry analyst who doesn't mince words, puts it thusly:
"Everyone in the industry knows this benchmark is wildly optimistic and that the actual battery life you'll get is often less than half what MobileMark suggests. This is because MobileMark measures battery life much like you might measure gas mileage if you started the car, put it in neutral and coasted down a long hill."
Or, less colorfully but more literally, the New York Times' Ashlee Vance reports:
"Patrick Moorhead, a vice president for marketing at A.M.D., said the parameters for this test include having the screen at just 20 percent brightness, Wi-Fi turned off and no music, video, games or Web pages running. More or less, the test turns a computer into a dimly lit clock, then sees how long it can run."
And thus we come to the lawsuit, which is really just another front in the long-running war between Intel and AMD (and, if successful, yet another attorney economic stimulus package). That laptop battery claims are lampoonish is a given; how much consumers have been harmed by that may be up a jury to decide, if the class action is ultimately approved.
If the suit resulted in batteries that actually lasted as long as vendors claimed they did, I'd jump in with both feet. Somehow I doubt that's gonna happen. Meanwhile, PC vendors continue to generate generously optimistic claims about how long their machines will last.
Right now, for example, I've got a Acer Timeline AS3810T charging up on my desk. It's a sweet-looking, dare I say MacBook Air-like, Intel-based ultrathin that claims to deliver 8 to 9 hours of battery life, thanks to -- you guessed it -- the MobileMark 2007 benchmark.
If I can lug this sucker around for 8 hours doing what I normally do before I have to start hunting for an AC outlet, I will eat my hat, washed down with a tall frosty beer. Heck, give me 6 hours and I'd be happy.
I'll let you know how that goes and, possibly, how my hat tastes.
Have you ever had a laptop battery that lasted as long as it was supposed to? Post your accounts here or e-mail me direct: cringe@infoworld.com.
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