Microsoft started a war earlier this year by claiming its Edge web browser resulted in better battery life by a good margin, and Google hasn’t taken it lightly.
After Google responded showing a video on how much Chrome has improved in battery life over last year’s version, Microsoft shot back to clear things up.
Microsoft ran a test earlier this year testing battery life on four identical laptops. The test involved having each web browser play a looped video until each laptop died. Surprisingly, Edge beat the competition by a fair margin, and absolutely trounced Google’s Chrome. Edge lasted 7 hours and 22 minutes while Chrome lasted 4 hours and 19 minutes.
After Google tried to redeem Chrome by demonstrating how much the browser’s recent build fares versus last years version, Microsoft was quick to chime in. It uploaded a new video showing the latest version of Edge against the rest of the competition. And again, Edge edged out of the competition, albeit not as much as last time. This time, Google didn’t come dead last at 6 hours and 3 minutes, but Edge still won. Edge won with 8 hours and 47 minutes of battery life. It beat its old time by and hour and 25 minutes.
In a blog post, Microsoft presented some charts showing how Edge fared against the competition.
Microsoft was also quick to point out that in Google’s test, it decided to stream video from Vimeo instead of Netflix. To keep things fair, Microsoft too ran this same test, but on Vimeo and got even more impressive results. “In this test, Microsoft Edge lasted even longer – more than 13 hours! – and still beats Chrome by more than an hour. Microsoft Edge even lasted 62% longer – more than five hours! – when compared to Firefox.”
While the browser battery battle is getting a little silly, one thing’s for sure: better battery life is great for everyone.
