9 Tips to Make Your Laptop Battery Last Longer

In our fast-paced, tech-driven world, getting every minute out of your laptop is essential. Whether you are using your laptop for work, study, or leisure, extending your battery life can prevent those frustrating moments when your device runs out of power at the worst possible time. Here are some practical tips on how to make your laptop battery last longer.

1. Always Bring A Charger

Public spaces are more likely than ever to have publicly available charging ports, and even buses and trains sometimes provide them. The biggest battery in the world will eventually drain no matter how much power saving you use, so keep a spare power adapter to hand. Alternatively you could use a power bank that supports charging laptops, check your laptops required wattage before purchasing a power bank.

Tip: Always have a charger with your laptop, consider keeping a spare if you travel a lot.

2. Heavy Usage vs. Light Usage

Your laptop's battery life is heavily influenced by how you use it. High-intensity tasks like gaming, video editing, and streaming HD videos can drain your battery much faster than lighter tasks such as word processing or browsing simple websites. To conserve battery, try to limit the time spent on power-hungry applications when you are away from a power source.

Tip: Plan intensive tasks when your laptop is plugged in, and stick to lighter tasks when you need to rely on battery power. Consider monitoring your system through Windows’ Task Manager (or similar software) to track your CPU and GPU usage if unsure.

3. Screen Brightness: Dim the Lights

Reducing your screen brightness can have a substantial impact on your battery life. Some laptops have settings to automatically adjust brightness up or down, but manually controlling the brightness to lower the brightness can be even better.

Tip: Lower your screen brightness to the minimum level you are comfortable with, especially in dim environments.

4. Keyboard Backlight: Keep It Off

While the keyboard backlight is a handy feature, it can also drain your battery if left on unnecessarily. Many laptops allow you to turn off the keyboard backlight manually or set it to turn off automatically after a period of inactivity. The backlight settings can usually be found on one of the F keys above your keyboard. On some laptops you may see a light symbol on the spacebar, which while holding the function key, will allow you to turn off the backlight.

Tip: Turn off the keyboard backlight during the day or when you don't need it.

5. Windows Built-In Power Manager: Optimise Power Settings

Windows provides a built-in power manager that lets you optimise your laptop’s power consumption. You can access it by searching for "Power & sleep settings" in the Start menu. From there, you can manage how fast your laptop goes to sleep, or change more technical settings for your power plan.

Tip: Use the "Battery Saver" mode when you need to extend battery life as much as possible.

6. Avoid Overcharging: Protect Your Battery’s Health

Consistently keeping your laptop plugged in can lead to overcharging, which might reduce the overall lifespan of the battery and reduce battery time per cycle. Most modern laptops are designed to handle continuous charging, but it is still a good practice to unplug your laptop once it is fully charged.

To check your battery health, you can use the laptops manufacturer’s apps such as Lenovo vantage & HP assist, or a third party tool. These will tell you how much of the original capacity the battery will charge to as over all time all batteries will degrade. The battery may need to be replaced if the remaining capacity is too low.

Some models have built in settings which allow for smarter charging such as disabling the battery when plugged in or setting a charging threshold. This helps to increase the lifespan of your device's battery. Just remember to disable the setting and fully charge if you need to use your laptop on the go.

Tip: Disconnect your laptop from the charger once it reaches 100% to prevent overcharging.

7. Disable Background Apps: Conserve Energy

Just because you’re not using a program doesn’t mean it isn’t using your system resources, including your battery. Video playback, video editing, 3D workloads, games etc. can all use a lot of power even if only running in the background. Closing out of any programs that put your system under heavy load is highly advised.

Tip: Regularly review and disable background apps if you aren’t using them.

8. Close Unnecessary Browser Tabs: Reduce Load

Having multiple browser tabs open can significantly affect your laptop's performance and battery life. Each tab consumes memory and processing power, which in turn uses more battery. While modern browsers will attempt to put tabs to “sleep” if not used for some time, this can potentially lead to loss of work and should be more actively managed.

Tip: Close tabs that you are not actively using, keep bookmarks of sites you aren’t actively using.

9. Manage Background Software Updates

When first installing software or a new version of Windows, updates are often still running in the background without telling you. During the first time setting up a program or windows installation, give the system time to download and install with the charger. These updates will otherwise take up a noticeable amount of internet bandwidth and battery life.

Tip: Turn off automatic updates and schedule them for when your laptop is charging. Working offline? Enable Flight/Aeroplane mode to disable bluetooth and wifi which both consume a lot of battery power.

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By following these tips, you can significantly improve your laptop's battery life and ensure it serves you well throughout your day. Keeping track of your laptop’s battery is as important as monitoring your car’s fuel; running out of either can be disastrous. So keeping track of it is crucial for working on the go.

Managing work between what has time to be done with the charger and what can be done on the battery is a conscious decision, but there’s lots of little power saving options to tweak if you know where to look. Hopefully these tips will give you the extra time you need.