MBA 2011 Windows Battery Life

A benchmark run on the same system with Windows vs Lion would give us excellent data. Can't find that... so what's everybody seeing as far as battery life on the 2011 MBA running Windows 7? Either 11" or 13".

Also, are there any performance/battery differences when comparing bootcamped Windows 7 vs a format + clean install of Windows 7?

Thanks! Been looking for threads but can't find what I need

 

The reason why there aren't any tests (I don't know, I didn't look) is because battery life won't change all that much for the MBA when using Windows over OS X. I think it decreases by an hour or two but that has all I have read. It isn't like the 15" or 17" MBP where battery life is drastically reduced because those can only use their dedicated AMD GPUs in Windows and can't rely on the Intel HD 3000 (which sips power).

You also can't format and clean install Windows on a Mac. No matter what, you must go through the bootcamp procedure. You have the option of removing the OS X partition all together but you still have to go through bootcamp to do that. You can't just boot off of the Windows DVD and perform a clean install.

You should also know that running Windows as the primary OS on any Mac is generally a bad idea because Apple gimps the drivers for Windows. This means that the trackpad won't perform the same as it does in OS X, the SSD in a MBA is being run in IDE mode (not like a true SSD) with Windows so performance is slower than OS X, any firmware updates for the actual hardware and EFI (Macs don't have a BIOS) can only be done through Mac OS X, and battery life is decreased as previously noted. There is a whole thread dedicated to running Windows as the only OS on a MBA. It is a rather long read but I suggest you get through it as your questions have been answered there along with anything else you can think of.

 

Great reply! I think I'm one step closer to making a decision.

 

I assume you've seen:

MacBook Air review (mid 2011) -- Engadget

Windows Benchmarks PCMarkVantage 3DMark06
Battery Life
MacBook Air (mid 2011) (1.7GHz Core i5-2557M, Intel HD Graphics 3000, Under Windows 7) 9484 4223 4:12


OS X Benchmarks Geekbench Xbench OpenGL
Battery Life
MacBook Air (mid 2011) (1.7GHz Core i5-2557M, Intel HD Graphics 3000) 5373 unavailable 5:32

 

I'm getting a 2011 MBA 13 in this week, and I'll be doing a graphics/performance review of it by Friday.

I'll run any requested software.

 

If you install Windows on it, can you download/test Team Fortress 2 or Left4Dead 2?

I play these games a lot, and I usually use my desktop for them, but I'd like to be able to play them on the go. I'm also interested in seeing how they compare, performance-wise, to my 2010 MBP13 with the Nvidia 320M IGP.

 

Most Source games run pretty much identically, so here's a link to the GPU section of Anandtech's review of the 11" and 13" MBAs. They test both HL2:E2 and Portal 2.

AnandTech - The 2011 MacBook Air (11 & 13-inch): Thoroughly Reviewed

Edit: Nevermind, you wanted Windows benches. Source games should perform similarly across the current generation of Intel ULV processors with HD3000 in Windows, so you should be able to find those benchmarks fairly easily.

At 1440x900, you will see a reduction in FPS, but at 1280x800 you will only see a small reduction in FPS in either of those games.

 

These statements are inconsistent.

 

No they aren't. I said that the battery life won't change much but the most I have come across is a 1-2 hour dip. I should have said that was from someone who put up benchmarks when they were gaming in Windows. It also happened to be on a 2010 MBA with the Core 2 Duo processor and Nvidia IGP so I don't know how the 2011 model really fairs but it is enough to get a generalization that the battery life won't be that much different and, if it is, you are looking at ~1-2 hours (which isn't that much compared to the 15" and 17" MBPs).

 

I dont know who told you that you couldnt install windows without osx because you can and ive personally done it on my 11 inch air. i installed bootcamp after the fact for the drivers but there was no osx installed on the computer at all. i also did boot using a windows disk. i know its possible because i did it.

 

What is this, nitpick through a two week old post day? I never said you had to go through OS X. I said you had to go through the bootcamp procedure.

 

Aren't those games on OSX where you would have more battery life anyways?

 

The tradeoff is worse performance. DirectX vs OpenGL is what it boils down to. Games perform better in Windows, at least for now. Apple has been getting better with video drivers and improving performance, as evidenced in the last few 10.6 updates and in 10.7. Valve and others are improving performance for their games in OS X. But, for now, Windows is the best for maximum performance and game options.

And really, battery life when running games in either OS will be poor, but I suppose it would be poorer in Windows due to the lack of power optimizations for Macs.

 

My experience is that the source engine has very similar performance between the 2 OS. I do bet there are some small changes however.

If I go into IGPU mode on my 15" while running SC2 and turn the game down to low/medium then I can get a couple of hours which isn't bad. Even on dedicated GPU mode I think I've lasted 3+ hours.