Battery life is a focus of Intel as they prepare for the launch of Windows 10. PCWorld reports that Intel is working on a patch to help increase battery life by fixing a minor bug. While the largest effect on battery life performance has been under 10% that’s still a significant number and Intel is working to have it fixed by the new operating system’s launch, slated for next week. According to Intel, the battery performance on Windows 10 devices will be close to or the same as devices running Windows 8.1.
Because Windows 10 is a brand new operating system, new drivers as well as other performance optimizations and bug fixes are needed to make sure that Intel chips and computers running Windows 10 will be as efficient as possible. Intel stated in an email to PCWorld
“Intel and Microsoft are working to optimize drivers for battery performance on Windows 10 across Intel platforms. While we are working on technical optimizations, we have seen very minor hits to battery life but even the upper end of what we have seen is below 10 percent. Do know that we expect battery life on Windows 10 systems to be nearly the same as on Windows 8.1 systems once the final Windows 10 drivers have been updated and released.”
Updates for drivers and bug fixes are important to continue improving performance of devices. While Windows 10 reached RTM recently, it’s a service and will never be finished. Day one updates are expected as well continued improvements over time. Additionally, companies such as Intel will continue to develop driver updates. Between Microsoft and companies continually working together and updating it’s likely that battery life won’t be any worse than on previous operating systems.
With older hardware running new software it’s important to make sure that they work well together. In the weeks after the initial launch we’ll have a better idea of how well batteries perform with Windows 10.