Win 7 vs Win 8 vs Win 8.1

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Agera One

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Apr 11, 2014
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I'm going to buy a laptop. The main purpose is daily use (watching movies mainly). I travel with my laptop, so I want to save power as much as possible. Is it true the power consumption more in Win 7 than win 8 than win 8.1 ???
 

Videographer

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Sep 9, 2014
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Windows 8 does have some extra power management but its not something to worry about. What matters more is the CPU. Something like a 4010u will draw very little power (as do all the 'u' chips) and that will give better battery life than a differnet OS. Also check out the actual battery in the specs rather than its quoted run time which is generally way off track. My thinkpad claims it gets 9 hours battery life but in reality its more like 4
 

kanewolf

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You probably won't have much choice with a new laptop. If you buy from one of the websites that lets you configure your own, you may be able to specify. Laptops geared to business sales generally have more options from an OS standpoint since the corporations are slow adopting new OS.
Most laptops targeted to average consumers have Win 8 or 8.1 by now.
 

Bolin

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Sep 8, 2014
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Agree, you usually have to half the advertised battery life in order to get an accurate estimate for light work.


 

kanewolf

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Since motherboard drivers for laptops are controlled much tighter by the vendors, even if you buy a laptop with windows 8 and have windows 7 available that you want to downgrade, you MAY NOT be able to find motherboard drivers.

You will probably improve your battery life much more by lowering your screen brightness, having a solid state disk, disabling bluetooth if you don't need it, etc.
 

DukiNuki

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Aug 21, 2011
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Hey there

I recommend Windows 8.1 for sure . because Games run much better on it . its newer and faster . there are no reasons to go with old win 7 . not that its bad . you already have better and newer option .

 

Railhound

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Dec 28, 2014
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Well I would have to disagree with you. Windows 8 is missing a lot of features that were in Windows 7 - Media Center for example. It also has an incredibly clumsy user interface (in my opinion).
 
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