10. MobileMark 2005 Battery Benchmarks

The MobileMark 2005 benchmarks test how a mobile computer does when running on battery. There are four battery life tests: office productivity, research and reading, DVD playback and wireless Web browsing. The DVD playback test is run only when the computer has a built-in DVD drive or includes a dedicated external DVD drive that is powered only by the computer's battery.

Each test uses real world applications and runs from the time the computer's battery reaches full charge and the power plug is pulled until the battery is totally discharged. Test results are reported in hours and minutes. In addition MobileMark 2005 calculates two performance values while doing the office productivity test: an overall performance score and the average response time for completion of all the tasks in the office productivity test. The overall performance score is based on average response time and is scaled against the performance of a modestly powered reference system, which received a score of 100.

MobileMark 2005 tests are run with the CPU in battery saving mode. This means that the CPU speed changes according to computing demands and in some cases current battery charge. Though it tends to increase battery life while reducing performance, this is the preferred way to run a laptop on battery and, because this is the default setting on almost all mobile computers, it is the way most people run their laptops on internal power.

All MobileMark 2005 tests are performed using the battery that comes with the computer when you buy it. If the manufacturer also provides a higher capacity battery, we run only the MobileMark 2005 Office Productivity tests with that battery installed and report the results separately

The following charts present the MobileMark 2005 tests for the Toshiba Libretto U100S213. Charts also include test results for the three other laptops included in this review.