You might want to consider that battery life promise on your new laptop “false news.”

If you find to your horror that your laptop’s battery life is a heck of a lot less than what the manufacturer claimed you could expect, you’re not alone, fellow tech slaves.

Tests by a UK tech web site finds that most manufacturers, including Lenovo, are overstating energy expectations.

One of the worst: Lenovo’s Yoga 510 tablet.

  • Claimed battery life: 5 hours
  • Which? tests: 2 hours, 7 minutes

“In some cases, the battery life estimates were double what we achieved in our lab testing,” Which? is reporting.

“Overall we found that manufacturers are missing their claims not by minutes, but by hours.”

[ Such tests can be taken very seriously. For example, check out the debate between Consumer Reports and Apple at: http://www.consumerreports.org/apple/apple-releases-fix-to-macbook-pros-in-response-to-consumer-reports-battery-test-results/ ]

Some 67 models were tested over the past several months, including 20 from Lenovo, which operates one of its two corporate headquarters in Morrisville and is the world’s top PC seller.

“The most optimistic laptop manufacturers are overstating their battery life by 50% or more, leaving you searching for the power cable twice as often as you’d expect,” Which notes.

On the plus side, Apple MacBooks meet or exceed battery life claims.

Which? says models were tested “at least three times” each.

“One test involves watching films until the battery finally shuts down, another continually browsing websites over Wi-Fi,” the testers add. “We believe that that these tests are representative of the real world use that a laptop would get. As the figures we arrived at are often drastically different to the manufacturer claims, we have to wonder how their own estimates are arrived at.”

Asked about the findings, Dell tells Which?: ‘It’s difficult to give a specific battery life expectation that will directly correlate to all customer usage behaviors because every individual uses their PC differently – it’s similar to how different people driving the same car will get different gas mileage depending on how they drive.”

HP had a similar reaction.

As for your reaction – write the company!

Read the full report at:

http://www.which.co.uk/news/2017/03/which-laptop-battery-tests-manufacturers-overstate/ – Which?