We just benchmarked the first 5 Googlebooks, and so far, they’ve held their own against the best Windows laptops and the best MacBooks. This is especially true with the Snapdragon X Elite-powered Dell XPS Googlebook and HP Googlebook 14. Even if Google’s new laptops aren’t mind-blowing, they’re far more capable than the best Chromebooks.
The one area that still concerns me is battery life. Google claims Googlebooks have at least 14 hours of battery life. As the company explains on a support page, they test battery life by keeping the laptop's screen brightness at a minimum of 100 nits, with Dark theme and Battery Saver mode enabled. Wi-Fi is connected and used for browsing data.
Our battery test is very different, so we didn’t get the same results. To put it bluntly, Googlebooks have disappointing battery life, especially when rival laptops can last anywhere from 15 to 20 hours on a single charge. So, how did Googlebooks fare in our battery life tests? Read on to find out!
Before getting into the results, I want to explain how we test a laptop’s battery life. I should note that Googlebook OS is a brand-new operating system, so we’re still working to determine the best tests and testing methods for the platform. But since some of the manufacturers are aware of how we test and didn’t object, we’re sticking with it.
As I said in our Googlebook benchmark story, our Googlebook battery test is the same as the one we've used on Chromebooks in the past, and it's much more demanding than Google's testing.
Source link







