Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: preboot, quickstart, hyperspace | Themes: Windows Tech Talk, Laptops and Notebooks
- 1. Don't Wait For Windows
- 2. HP QuickLook 2
- 3. Sony’s Fast Forward to Media
- 4. Voodoo IOS: Which Interface Do You Want?
- 5. Express Gate: Almost an OS?
- 6. Phoenix HyperSpace
- 7. How Quick is “Quick Start”?
- 8. Pre-Boot Speed Table
- 9. Manufacturers’ Power-Saving Claims
- 10. From Quick-Start to Quick-Boot
- 11. More on this topic
9. Manufacturers’ Power-Saving Claims
Sood said Voodoo IOS saves 20% on power over Windows, but nobody expects users to use the whole battery up in IOS. “The Voodoo IOS is not really designed to be a fully flexible OS. In no way are we saying that Voodoo IOS replaces Windows, because it doesn’t—it’s locked and its purpose is to give the user quick access to particular information and data. What it does do is save battery life when you’re on the go," Sood said. "Booting up a regular OS is actually quite tasking on the battery, even when you factor in standby mode. And getting in and out of hibernation is also draining on a battery. The Voodoo IOS gets you in quickly and efficiently, preserving battery life. It’s because it’s not tasking the HDD as much, the CPU isn’t running at maximum, and so on.”
Phoenix claims that HyperSpace extends battery life on the average notebook by 30% based on technologies similar to those that Voodoo's system also uses. The idea is to save battery life for when you use Windows later. Being able to browse the Web, read Gmail, and send IMs is useful, but you probably won't spend enough time doing only those things, without needing to run any other applications to save an appreciable amount of battery life. If you get an email with an attachment, you can only open that in Google Docs (or start Windows to work with it). When more of the promised HyperSpace applications are available, like the office applications, the media viewer, the DVD player, VOIP software, and the Windows remote desktop client, you will likely spend a lot more time in HyperSpace itself, while any battery savings will be more significant.
As always, those savings will depend very much on what you’re doing and what your personal mix of HyperSpace versus Windows amounts to. Whether you're quickly looking up a flight schedule, searching for an address, or browsing the web for a longer while, systems like HyperSpace will use up less of your battery life. But when we tested a Lenovo S10 playing photo slideshows from Flickr and streaming video from YouTube in HyperSpace Dual, the battery ran down more quickly than it did during an equivalent test that involved streaming photos and videos in Windows Media Player in XP. The screen, network connection, and hard drive use more power than the USB ports (which you can turn off in a Windows power plan, anyway).
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I could see this being very useful for one or 2 things..like a special purpose media player that will play all movie/audio formats and allow more of the hardware power to go to the actual content instead of supporting a bloated OS.
Many years ago I wondered if it would be possible to have an "OS Chip" that was exponentially faster than a stardard hard drive for storing your OS on...it looks like we're getting there!
At the very least it will push Microsoft harder to improve boot times. I think microsoft is working hard to improve boot times, but harder works for me. Really it will all be moot once they perfect one of the super fast static memory technologies, as then the whole system can go from off to on almost instantly... measure in 10s of ms.
I think these options will be less attractive once SSDs go mainstream. Intel SSDs boot Vista in < 10 seconds. Windows 7 should be even quicker.
this is what i am wondering too. right now these SSD's are just too small and the speeds are still trivial. i see if SSD don't make it then the motherboard makers will in the future just put and expansion port on there motherboards for a flashchip just for the OS
One important thing you seem to have forgotten: Windows XP, a full-sized OS that can boot in ~20 seconds (from bootloader screen to login screen, at least on my Athlon 64 X2 system with old Barracuda 7200.7). Newer hardware should improve it and possibly break 10 sec barrier.
Shame that XP wasn't included in this Speed Table...
Conclusion: you don't need to choose between beefy Vista or crippled quickstart os'es. Just use XP (or some light Linux distro).
WTF?
Have you ever used a Mac? Open it up and it wakes up from sleep immediately! None of this boot sillyness. This has been how Mac OS X has been working since 2001. Why keep eating the MS dog food when you can eat subway???
@fuser: see the boot speed table for how fast Windows 7 can boot on a fast SSD like the one in the S101; even the team at Phoenix were impressed by it.
@Anonymous: a Windows system wakes from sleep just as quickly and has done for many years. However many people choose to hibernate or shut down to save power. The first time I shut the lid on a Mac and left it unplugged for a few days and expected it to still have power when I came back to it, I was infuriated that it had stayed in sleep and run down the battery. You're comparing apples and oranges (and I wouldn't personally call Subway a premium brand either!)
Mary Branscombe
Why not have the option to boot into Windows Mobile: that takes only a few seconds, and there are lots of apps (like MS Office compatible word processor) that open in another second or two; and the interface to WM is familiar to many PDA/smartphone users. The discontinued NEC MobilePro 900 and Psion Netbook Pro boot instantly, and Open Office's word processor or MS Word reader open instantly.
Does anyone know where to download Quicklook2