I came across this article that said the Aero theme eats up more battery life on mobile systems than previous OS's. The thing I am not clear on is it just the entire Vista OS that is using up more power, or Aero itself? This article seems to point the finger only at the aero component at Vista, which seems a little odd to me.
http://www.techspot.com/news/21809-v...ery-power.html