Battery life on resolution reduction

[Mikailk]

I plan on getting the HP Spectre x360 13.3". I plan on getting the 4k one. Would reducing the resolution to something a little higher than 1080p improve battery significantly?

[STRMfrmXMN]

5 minutes ago, Mikailk said:

I plan on getting the HP Spectre x360 13.3". I plan on getting the 4k one. Would reducing the resolution to something a little higher than 1080p improve battery significantly?

Yes. 13.3" for 4K is stupid on Windows which can't scale properly for that.

[DrMacintosh]

4K at 13.3" is basically a giant "f*ck you" to customers. You won't be able to see it, your GPU performance will be shit, and your battery life will be shit. 

[Mikailk]

9 minutes ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

Yes. 13.3" for 4K is stupid on Windows which can't scale properly for that.

well Windows has scaling for the environment. 100% scaling is ridiculous, but it's still 4k. Would reducing it to 1440p or something like that considerably save battery?

[Glenwing]

20 minutes ago, Mikailk said:

I plan on getting the HP Spectre x360 13.3". I plan on getting the 4k one. Would reducing the resolution to something a little higher than 1080p improve battery significantly?

If you mean getting the 4K screen and turning down the resolution in Windows, it will improve the battery life by reducing GPU load a little, but it's not as significant as getting a lower resolution screen. Most of the power for the screen is for the backlight, and higher pixel densities require brighter backlight (more power) to achieve the same level of brightness as a lower density screen. Lowering the resolution in Windows won't change the physical resolution or density of the screen.

[Mikailk]

Just now, Glenwing said:

If you mean getting the 4K screen and turning down the resolution in Windows, it will improve the battery life by reducing GPU load a little, but it's not as significant as getting a lower resolution screen. Most of the power for the screen is for the backlight, and higher pixel densities require brighter backlight (more power) to achieve the same level of brightness as a lower density screen. Lowering the resolution in Windows won't change the physical resolution or density of the screen.

So what you're saying is it's almost pointless downscale the resolution. I have 30 days with the laptop. When I have it i'll benchmark it with scaling and without. The 1080p version just seems like a not great option considering most high-end laptops are at about 1440p these days.