Aero & laptop battery drain - experiences?

[Bren]

I'm currently running Vista Home Basic on a Dell D620 laptop, with the Vista
Basic visual theme. So far I've been quite impressed with Vista's power
management features and am quite happy.

I'm on the verge of doing an Anytime Upgrade to Home Premium, primarily for
Aero but also for some of the extra Mobility, DVD playback features etc.

Looking around the web there are quite a few articles and comments relating
to Aero and it draining battery power relative to both XP and the Vista
Basic theme. However just about all of these articles relate to the betas of
the OS, and all cite the same source for their evidence.

Just wanting to ask what peoples experience with Aero & battery drain is
with the final release of Vista, and has deactivating Aero made any
difference?

Thanks,

Bren
(sorry for xposting!)

 

[Paul Smith]

Aero does have an impact on battery life, I've not done any tests but in my
case it might be around the 20-30 minute mark.

So when I'm away from a power socket I turn Aero off, and when I've got
access to power I turn it on.

--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User.
http://www.windowsresource.net/

*Remove nospam. to reply by e-mail*

 

[Bren]

Paul,

Much obliged! I'm currently getting around the 2:30-3 hour mark currently,
so a 20/30 minute hit doesn't sound so bad.

Thanks for the reply,

Bren