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.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.