So how did my 17" MacBook Pro fare? .

Windows 7 stood no chance against OS X. Instead of the usual 4.5 hours (idle) and 4 hours (typical workload), I got 3.5 and 3 respectively. During HD playback, my MacBook Pro gave up after a bit over 2.5 hours running Windows, while Lion kept on playing for roughly 3.5 hours. when I switched over to a loaner 2011 MacBook Air (Core i7), although the difference isn't as noticeable.

The verdict? Windows 7's power management is pretty awesome on Windows laptops -- not so on Macs. The built-in Boot Camp drivers (even using 4.0) tend not to conserve as much energy as they should. Plus, the CPU and GPU fans keep on spinning constantly, even under low workload, and the device produces an enormous amount of heat. Using OS X, the MacBooks tend to stay a bit cooler and quieter under the same conditions. However, it never reaches dangerous levels and even the fan noise isn't as bad as you might think. I think this is the major downside of running Windows on a Mac and that's the reason I needed to shell out that extra cash for a , which gives me an additional 10-12 hours of battery life.

With the sloppiness of Boot Camp driver quality fresh in my mind, I feared for the performance of Windows. I put both OSes through the paces on my mid-2009 MacBook Pro with an Intel Penryn C2D (3 GHz), 4 GB of RAM and a 256 GB Toshiba SSD and here's what I found: