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Impact of screen resolution on battery consumption

post #1 of 10
1/31/09 at 11:00pm
Thread Starter 
Hi all,
I plan to buy a new laptop soon, and 1 question remains unanswered while I took a long time to look over the Web for it.
How does the screen resolution actually impact on battery consumption?
I consider this question important because the screen is the most battery consuming element in a laptop.

I found only one post dealing about that, however the author refers to an interview where there is no values given, only a trivial statement meaning lower resolution implies lower consumption.
But how much?

Let's consider two screens:
1. 15.4" WSXGA+ LCD (1680X1050)
2. 15.4" WXGA LCD (1280X800)

My (naive?) questions:
With the 1680X1050, there are about 1,7 times more pixels than with the 1280X800, so does the first one consume 1,7 times more battery than the second one? (which may *really* be taken into account before choosing the screen)
Does the screen consumption only depend on its size (ie 15.4")?
Is it a value close to 1 or close to 1,7 times?

Answers to such questions may really help many customers like me who want to find a good compromise between screen quality, performance, and battery consumption.
Does someone have already done such tests?
Thx for helping
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post #2 of 10
1/31/09 at 11:07pm
1. It is an oxymoron regarding the more the resolution, the more the battery needs to give out. One must take in consideration of the battery size and output that comes with the comp in question. Based on the resolution alone is not enough.

2. The only proven battery saving "trick" so far is to dim the screen display. That is why most of power scheme would dim down the lcd when on battery.

cheers ...
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post #3 of 10
1/31/09 at 11:30pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by qhn View Post
1. It is an oxymoron regarding the more the resolution, the more the battery needs to give out.
Agreed and said above.

Quote:
One must take in consideration of the battery size and output that comes with the comp in question. Based on the resolution alone is not enough.
I know there are several factors playing a role in battery consumption.
My question is about the screen resolution factor.

Quote:
2. The only proven battery saving "trick" so far is to dim the screen display. That is why most of power scheme would dim down the lcd when on battery.
Yeah, it's the most well known one, but off-board here.
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post #4 of 10
2/1/09 at 1:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mym View Post
...
My question is about the screen resolution factor. ...
I personally do not see any factors from larger screen resolution on battery, taking from personal experience of upgrading my 1440x900 to 1920x1200.

cheers ...
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post #5 of 10
2/1/09 at 1:47am
If there is more consumption due to higher res, it would come from the Graphics chip having to work harder to manipulate more pixels. Each pixel uses a barely significant amount of power. A physically larger screen, however, will consume a lot more power by needing a bigger back-light.
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post #6 of 10
2/1/09 at 2:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by olyteddy View Post
.. A physically larger screen, however, will consume a lot more power by needing a bigger back-light.
Yep, good distinction here.

cheers ...
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post #7 of 10
2/1/09 at 8:23am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by olyteddy View Post
If there is more consumption due to higher res, it would come from the Graphics chip having to work harder to manipulate more pixels. Each pixel uses a barely significant amount of power. A physically larger screen, however, will consume a lot more power by needing a bigger back-light.
Thx qhn and olyteddy.
So I think I'll opt for the higher resolution
In any way, I would have been glad to see some benchs on this point, but nobody consider that
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post #8 of 10
2/1/09 at 11:08am
Eventually I hope, laptops LCDs benchmarking is not a practical issue, just yet - considering the limitation of the refresh rate. And it is not so easy to find any specs regarding response time on the lcds installed on laptops.

But I would not be surprised that it will become and will be used as a selling point down the road.

cheers ...
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post #9 of 10
2/1/09 at 4:10pm
The main power draw on displays comes from the backlighting which is dependent on screen size and brightness rather than resolution. As pointed out above there is probably some increase in power draw for a higher resolution screen with all other factors equal but I doubt it's significant and I wouldn't use it as a consideration when making a purchasing decision.

In the future as OLED screens become cheaper to produce you will find significant advantages in power consumption since they don't require backlighting.
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post #10 of 10
2/1/09 at 5:57pm
Thread Starter 
Thx Woody87 for your valuable remarks, now I'm sure of my choice ^^
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