Chromebooks and Battery Life

Good point from Alex Chitu at the (unaffiliated with Google) Google Operating System blog:

It’s not clear why the latest Chromebooks no longer have a great battery life, but the new batteries are obviously cheaper and lighter. Google’s Chromebook features page no longer mentions the word “battery”, even if this was one of the main selling points for the first Chromebooks.

This was posted before Google announced their own $1299 Chromebook Pixel hardware, but even that doesn’t fare well. Google claims “up to 5 hours of active use”; both the 13-inch MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro With Retina Display promise “Up to 7 hours wireless web”.

Battery life is one reason why I remain a deep skeptic of Chrome OS. Post-PC devices should get better battery life, not worse.

★ Monday, 25 February 2013