Enter the Laggin’

In 2020, the majority of businesses are running Windows 10.[1] But although the jump up from Windows 7 has given users a lot more capabilities, it also has an impact on processing power. Windows 10 uses up 30% more CPU, and has the highest graphics requirement of any operating system to date.

It’s the price you pay for all that extra functionality. It wouldn’t be an issue if we all had state-of-the-art laptops that could easily cope with the requirements. But most hardware purchases are expected to last several years, which means that many of us are still working on devices that were never built for modern IT. And that ‘power gap’ is going to become even more obvious over the next few years, as operating systems and software gets even more advanced.

We all know the frustration when your laptop crashes just from fairly basic multi-tasking – like having three Excel spreadsheets open at the same time as Outlook. At best, employees might muddle through inefficiently in spite of the lag times. At worst, they might be fundamentally unable to continue their work.

You can’t stick your head in the sand

We usually associate system crashes or crippling lag with big, power-hungry software like graphic design, videography or heavy-duty data analysis. It’s true that you couldn’t do these kinds of jobs on a basic laptop – they require a serious workstation. But what many people don’t realise is that even software you’re accustomed to using every day takes up more CPU bandwidth than it used to.

With Windows 10, Microsoft have started using more and more graphics as part of their standard Office suite. Their aim is to make it prettier, and to bring it in line with the graphics from their Xbox line in the long run. So all those TikTok-dancing Gen Z employees of the future will have a workplace that matches the level of technology they’ve grown up with.

Which means that even programs like Microsoft Word, Outlook, Excel and PowerPoint – staples for every business function and role, not just graphic design – are using up much more energy than they used to. PowerPoint uses 91% more GPU in Windows 10 than it did in Windows 7. Excel is up 75% in the same period. Outlook jumped by a whopping 98%.

No-one imagines this increase in GPU-hungry programs will end with Windows 10 either. Expect future OS updates to add even more graphical requirements. Those statistics I quoted above are from 2018… so you can bet your house that it’s even more drastic today with the incremental updates. Yesterday’s laptops just aren’t cut out for tomorrow’s workflows – even if the employees are doing the same work, in the same programs.

So it’s not just graphic design professionals that are affected – it’s everyone.

Stuck in a losing game?

I love Bruce Lee movies – hence the title of this blog. And if there’s one thing that Bruce Lee taught me, it’s that no matter how impossible the odds seem, you can still win.

It’s a bit of a stretch, I know. You can’t sort out your IT hardware with a roundhouse kick or a one-inch punch. But the good news is that you can get ahead of the curve, without paying the earth for it. At Lenovo, we wanted to find out how we could make everyday laptops more powerful, to better equip them for the needs of today.

Most laptops have a built-in, ‘integrated’ graphics card on the processor – which to be completely honest, isn’t equipped to deal with modern software. When you add an extra graphics card, and set Office 365 and other software to run through that rather than the integrated one… you’re in business.

We tested the Lenovo T490 against the P43S entry-level workstation to see the difference in their graphics capacity. Incidentally, the T490 was the world’s most popular laptop at the time of the experiment – making it a good test case. Even now, there are likely to be one or two of them floating around in your office.

The outcome? The P43S performed 23% better.

Let’s put that in perspective. Imagine Gary in your finance team works on a Lenovo T490. He’s earning ￡50k per year, and spends every workday with his head buried in spreadsheets and analytics software. Since upgrading to Windows 10, his laptop has been getting progressively slower; waiting for files to open, waiting for reports to run, waiting for pivot tables to work and filter, and so on. This costs him around 5% of his day. Total that up, and the business is paying ￡2,500 per year in lost productivity.

That means the P43S, costing on average $150 more than the T490, would more than restore Gary’s 5% productivity gap and would pay for itself in as little as three weeks. That’s on top of the satisfaction benefits for Gary, who is no longer frustrated all the time (not to be underestimated!).

Take another look

So when it comes to futureproofing your business devices against power-hungry OS updates, you don’t necessarily need to invest heavily. If you understand your business processes, and know where to add extra capacity, you can spend your IT budget in a much more lean and efficient way.

Since no business has the luxury of unlimited funds, the question is not about which devices you buy; it’s about how to balance the right devices against the workflow requirements in your business. Rather than looking at IT hardware as a cost centre – or ignoring the problem entirely and muddling along on old devices – businesses should see it as an investment in their future.

If this is something you’re interested in and would like to discuss further, feel free to reach out to me.

[1] https://www.computerworld.com/article/3199373/windows-by-the-numbers-windows-10-restarts-purge-of-windows-7.html