GUI platform comparison

In general, all three GUI platforms characterized in this work perform similarly with regard to their energy efficiency. All are descendants of GUI platforms used in non-energy critical computers. None of them is designed with energy efficiency and awareness as a goal. Each contains areas for improvement. Windows performs better in event and interrupt handling due to its tighter integration with the OS, but suffers due to its desktop lineage. X/GTK is better in providing most implementation flexibility for designing an energy-efficient GUI, but suffers from using an X server and lack of enough features. Qt offers more features for a fancy user interface, but suffers from limited flexibility for making a GUI simpler. Moreover, since each of them only works with a unique OS and requires a different license, a platform choice is further complicated. However, the energy characterization of GUI platforms presented here should help GUI designers make a better decision and help GUI platform/toolkit developers improve their work with regard to energy consumption.