I just wondered, with regard to the new firmware updates, how much watts does it use under heavy load, casual load or idle?
I am curious to know for the foreseeable future.
I see on a different page that the temperature is addressed somewhat, but this also is a good question I think.
Side note though, I also wondered if LS1028A will use as much as imx8m, or more.
if i understand things correctly… the firmware updates don’t affect the loads you’ve asked about, i.e. when the entire system is powered on.
the updates only make a measurable difference when the system is powered off, to prevent significant battery drain over a period of days/weeks. it only affects a very low power chip to begin with.
Well, do you know what the measurements are when its online?
the power draw for, heavy usage, medium usage, lightweight usage and when its in a suspend mode? Any info is helpful regarding this.
Sure! I was also curious, so I just did some tests from the wall using a power outlet meter. Some variables:
Idle at terminal, display turned off:
Display at 100%:
Charging seems to add ~40-50 watts to normal consumption.
All things considered I’m pretty happy with these numbers!
I’m not testing suspend as I’ve heard it’s currently still unreliable for most people, so I haven’t bothered figuring it out.
Interesting numbers! When suspend is reliable, testing would be awesome for me to see.
Does charging normally add that many watts to normal consumption?
I do wonder though about LS1028A and 16GB, and well, the fact it doesn’t need any DDR4 blob, I wonder if that will be more lightweight or mostly the same, etc…
That being said, I have no desire for an ethernet device built in, dongles work, I am sure… 
So more or less, 15-17 watts is what I should expect when not plugged in and 60 or more while charged, at least until someone figures out why that is happening, good to know! Btw, isn’t 1TB SSD overkill?
Well either way, thank you for testing indeed!
I very much hope this improves in the future. 
I might be misunderstanding you- Do you see a problem?
To summarize: the laptop draws ~12-15 watts from the wall under normal usage while the batteries are fully charged. Add ~40-50 watts while they require charging.
What needs to be improved? Isn’t this normal?
The 1TB SSD was part of the crowdfunding ‘max’ bundle. For my usage, 256GB would be minimum, 512GB ideal. However at a $ per GB level, the sweetspot generally starts at 1TB these days. Go lower and you’re paying more per gigabyte. So economically it makes some sense, plus it’s just nice to have.
Well, is it normal for a laptop when its charging to use 40-50 watts or more then its usual amount when charging? Aka, do all laptops use more electricity to that extent when charging? Forgive my ignorance, I didn’t know that happened…
Hmm, I had not realized that about SSDs interesting. You are probably right about the price per GB.
And also about that being good statistics in general.
I just looked, it seems like that might be normal… also, it stands to reason that a laptop being charged might cause more electricity to be used in general…
It sounds like common sense to me.
Flowy it looked like you were going to say something just now? What? You can tell me, I am curious.
I think it’s within the range of normal? But there are a bunch of factors that I don’t know much about personally- lifepo4 (used in the Reform) vs li-ion battery chemistry, charging circuit strategies, long term battery health etc. My tests were pretty brief and I just wanted some quick data points. I wouldn’t even assume that 40-50 watts is constant.
Ah, hmm… so there is improvement to be made? That is unexpected!
Thanks for the info, I wonder how much my thinkpad x230 uses watt wise compared to the mnt reform. I know its not a fair battle, but meh… was curious.
I am sure that in power usage, X230, T430, etc… cannot beat the mnt reform.
aka, mnt reform is way lighter. Either way, still good to know the statistics.
I personally wouldn’t be concerned so much with power usage at the wall while charging, as most of that power’s going to be going into the batteries for later use. Assuming you’re asking to determine how energy efficient the machine is, anyway.
True, also that is something I seem to be curious about indeed!
Alright, I guess that’s it for now.