You had better think twice if you want to install flash on your MacBook Air. Arstechnica ran some battery life tests on Apples new MacBook Air and they have discovered that by installing Adobe Flash onto the system the battery life of a full charge can be reduced by as much as 33 percent.
This was originally discovered by accident on a MacBook with Flash installed websites loaded in Safari where Flash-based ads kept the CPU running far more than seemed necessary. Making the battery life last just 4 hours with Flash installed.
After deleting Adobe Flash the battery life increased to over 6 hours.
[GG]
TAGS:
battery life, flash, macbook air
I always new flash was a drain, but wouldn’t it matter less if you don’t have a the browser up?
This is a pretty nonsensical argument. Of course leaving processor intensive applications open is going to drain your battery. But flash is only going to activate when flash content is being rendered. Now think of the alternative: Wat if WebKit (the rendering engine behind Safari) was left to render content with same complexity? It’s not hardware accelerated, and graphics and motion routines are not optimized. You will experience far less battery life, I guarantee that. Flash is hardware accelerated, and is actually quiet efficient as a graphics runtime. If you leave Unreal Tournament running, you will probably experience less battery life too. Or Quicktime. Of course viewing intensive content is going to drain your battery. I dont get why this argument is still around, anyone with half a brain should be able to see through this FUD.