While it sounds ridiculous, there is a reasoning for this even nowadays:
Any periodic activity with a rate faster than one minute incurs the scrutiny of the Windows performance team, because periodic activity prevents the CPU from entering a low-power state. Updating the seconds in the taskbar clock is not essential to the user interface, unlike telling the user where their typing is going to go, or making sure a video plays smoothly. And the recommendation is that inessential periodic timers have a minimum period of one minute, and they should enable timer coalescing to minimize system wake-ups.
Found 1 test that seems to confirm battery life is slightly worse (2%) with seconds enabled. But this is true only when nothing is going on on screen. If you would actually work on PC, I imagine difference would be practically nonexistent.
All that said, I use seconds on my private and work PC. Was pissed when MS initially removed this as an option.
The moment I heard about the option was the moment I literally searched on how to enable/install this single KB-Update just so I can use it :P
Regarding the battery: That would be like leaving the desktop on at all times and just doing something else. This could be appropriate for an e-ink display. Maybe a PC should embed what form-factor it is in the bios like android phones do (e.g. phone, tablet, phablet) and the display report what type of panel it is (e.g. e-ink, TN, IPS, VA, QLED/OLED hybrid).
You can actually see those specs with AIDA64 on a phone. Very neat
Win11 also says that showing seconds in the taskbar “reduces battery life”/“increases power consumption”
While it sounds ridiculous, there is a reasoning for this even nowadays:
Found 1 test that seems to confirm battery life is slightly worse (2%) with seconds enabled. But this is true only when nothing is going on on screen. If you would actually work on PC, I imagine difference would be practically nonexistent.
All that said, I use seconds on my private and work PC. Was pissed when MS initially removed this as an option.
The moment I heard about the option was the moment I literally searched on how to enable/install this single KB-Update just so I can use it :P
Regarding the battery: That would be like leaving the desktop on at all times and just doing something else. This could be appropriate for an e-ink display. Maybe a PC should embed what form-factor it is in the bios like android phones do (e.g. phone, tablet, phablet) and the display report what type of panel it is (e.g. e-ink, TN, IPS, VA, QLED/OLED hybrid).
You can actually see those specs with AIDA64 on a phone. Very neat