HP Envy x360 with Ryzen 5 2500U has poor battery life

Posted on Wednesday, December 06 2017 @ 11:24 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
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The Tech Report published an interesting test in which they compare the performance of the Acer Swift 3 with the Intel Core i5-8250U and NVIDIA GeForce MX150 video card, versus the HP Envy x360 that sports AMD's Ryzen 5 2500U APU.

The brand new Raven Ridge APU from AMD features Zen-based processor cores and integrated graphics based on the Vega 11 architecture. Unfortunately, The Tech Report didn't manage to get its hands on the Intel version of the HP Envy x360 so this is not an apples-to-apples comparison.

What the site wanted to investigate is how both laptops managed basic web browsing. They did this by attaching a 2560 x 1440 external LCD display to the HDMI output of each system, to remove the impact of the power consumption of the laptop's internal screen. The results are pretty interesting, to say the least. The reviewer found that in terms of minutes of battery life per Wh of battery capacity, the Intel-based system did 2.45x better in the web browsing test!

AMD Ryzen Mobile APU benchmarked vs Intel in battery life

A further investigation reveals that HP may be to blame here, as the Intel-based version of the Envy x360 has a battery life that is equally disappointing:
Laptop Magazine observed just under six hours of battery life with the Intel Core i5-8250U (five hours and 49 minutes), while the AMD-powered unit lasted just five hours and 11 minutes. Both results are lower than the figures the outfit observed from competing models, suggesting that immature firmware and drivers may share some of the blame for the below-average runtime between appointments with the wall outlet. While the Intel machine still won out, the results lend credence to the idea that the implementation of the Ryzen 5 2500U in the Envy x360 may be more to blame for the short run time than any inherent flaw with the AMD processor itself. We observed a much greater gulf in battery life across machines from different vendors.
What we can conclude here is that the Ryzen Mobile-based Envy x360, which is heavily promoted by AMD, does not seem like a good representation of Ryzen Mobile's capabilities.


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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