An interesting test was recently performed by the guys over at AnandTech where they used an AMD laptop, Intel laptop and an Atom based netbook to compare battery life of the said machines based on what browser was used. It’s not something I have really paid attention to in the past as I didn’t think that the browser usage would directly effect battery life. Surprisingly, the results show that the browser you use does effect battery life.
First off it was the AMD laptop that was tested. The findings show that if using Internet Explorer 8 then you get the most out of your laptop battery. In this case a total of 175 minutes of browsing time on a full battery compared to the lowest, Safari 4, which achieved just 131 minutes.
Findings on the Intel based laptop was very similar although battery life was a little higher compared to the AMD based laptop. IE8 came out at the top again but this time with 227 minutes of time while Safari 4 at the bottom of the list achieved 184 minutes.
The Atom based netbook was the final test which showed some slightly different times. This time the top spot was Chrome 2 which achieved an impressive 454 minutes.
For the full comparison check out AnandTech which breaks down the results and gives a detailed explanation of what’s what.