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Comment by Touche | Hacker News Reader

Yes, of course, Windows can be comparable on similar capacities. Does this need to be stated? Go read the reviews of some Acer or Samsung laptops. Extrapolating the problems of the Surface 2 to all computers with the same OS doesn't make sense. Microsoft isn't experienced at making computers, shouldn't be a surprise that they are bad at it right now.

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The article's point was that on closely comparable hardware doing nearly the same task, the operating system seems to make a significant difference in battery power. Maybe other Windows PC makers are more experienced in making efficient drivers and tuning the OS delivered on disk? In a couple of reviews I read, that isn't the case:

First Samsung laptop review I read, a NP900X3E-K01US with a 44 Wh battery:

...battery life is disappointing for such an expensive laptop... [1]

Second, a Dell XPS 12 review:

50WHr battery ... Wi-Fi browsing test ... seven hours and 58 minutes

[1] http://www.cnet.com/laptops/samsung-ativ-book-9/4505-3121_7-...

[2] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/review-xps-12s-haswel...

I'm puzzled, your comments seem to claim simultaneously that:

* There is not a battery life problem on Windows machines.

* The battery life problem on Windows machines is not surprising.

No, I didn't say #2, I said it's not surprising that the Surface Pro gets poor battery life. My comment about this whole controversy is that you cannot project 1 computer's battery problems to the operating system. My Windows does get poor battery life but we haven't seen any evidence of that. Clearly it can get good battery life as there are real-life computers running Windows that get great battery life.

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