Battery Life and Power Management in Vista

hey guys, i have a z61t w/ 7 cell battery, and i've been really puzzled by my experiences with the power manager.

if my memory serves me correctly, on Windows XP, i was getting a little over 5 hours on battery w/ wireless OFF and a little over 3 hours w/ wireless ON using the "power source optimized" setting under the Thinkvantage Power Manager.

After switching to Vista Business, I usually get around 3-4 hours whether my wireless is on or off.

I've also noticed that the Thinkvantage Power Gage in the Taskbar is really inaccurate. From 100% down to about 80%, it fluctuates around 3 hours and 10 minutes.

does anybody else have these problems?
1) shorter battery life
2) inaccurate and fluctuating Thinkvantage Power Manager Gage estimates?

How has your experience been with Vista and Thinkvantage Power Manager?

 

bump, after shortening and tidying up the initial post.

 

Losing 2 hours of battery life with wireless on looks abnormal. At most you should lose 30mins. - 1 hour.

Vista does use more processing power than XP, therefore, you should receive less battery life.

On the latest BootCamp running Vista, aero can be automatically turned off when the laptop is running on battery, and automatically re-enable it when it's back on AC.