Google Claims Hours More Battery Life with Chrome for Windows

Google has provided a new battery life comparison that shows that the latest version of its Chrome web browser for Windows obtains about two hours of additional battery life on the same hardware when compared to a year-ago version.

What they’re not comparing, of course, is Chrome battery life to that of Microsoft Edge. I suspect that comparison wouldn’t be too pretty. But at least they’re working on this.

Last week, I wrote about the latest version of Chrome for Windows, which provides a Material Design look and feel, better support for high-DPI displays, and improved battery life. Today, the search giant is claiming that the latter improvement is more significant that I had hoped, with Chrome 53 providing two hours of additional video playback time in Vimeo.

If you understand how PC makers report battery life on their devices, you know that video playback is used regularly because it garners big numbers. This figure doesn’t really indicate real world battery life, of course, but that’s fine for this kind of test because it lets you compare two configurations side-by-side.

But Google says that Chrome’s battery life improvements aren’t just for video playback.

“We’ve been improving battery life across the board, tracking progress using power measurement tools,” the firm explains. “As one example, Chrome for Mac now uses 33 percent less power for everything from videos and images to simple page scrolling. Whether you’re planning a vacation or getting work done, you now get more browsing time from a single battery charge.”

I’m curious to see if Microsoft will provide updated battery life comparisons between Edge and Chrome. I think we all know Google won’t be doing that anytime soon.