Longer battery life: every laptop user and Duracell bunny wants it. But few achieve it.
We’ve all been there – that last-minute dash to the plug socket as we realise our battery has plunged to ‘critically low’. Or, even worse, when you’re out and about with your laptop and your battery dies with no socket in sight.
But if you don’t want to be permanently tied to a power outlet (which we’ll come back to later), hope is not lost. After all, laptops are designed to be mobile – so let’s look at ways to get the freedom back into your battery.
Whilst you can’t increase the percentage of battery left, you can help reduce the amount of power that your laptop is using, so that you’re sipping on battery juice, not gulping it.
Reduce screen brightness
It may seem a little too easy, but most laptop screens work with high-quality brightness, and by dimming them ever so slightly it can really save your battery life, not to mention your eyes. Simply dim yours to a comfortable level.
On a PC, you can hit the Function (Fn) key, using your arrow buttons to lower the brightness, while on a Mac the brightness keys are usually at the top of the keyboard either with a sun symbol or F1.
You can also set a timer on your display so that it dims when it’s not active; this is a great way to reduce battery usage when you’re not actively using your computer. If you’re on a PC you can access these settings via your Control Panel, Hardware and Sound, Power Options and then then Edit Plan Settings. On a Mac you can find these settings in System Preferences under Energy Saver.
Close tabs and applications
A big culprit of poor battery life is having a lot of applications running and multiple tabs open on your web browser.
Unless you shut down programmes and applications when you’ve finished using them, they will keep running in the background and drain your battery life.
Similarly, the more web pages you have open, the less efficient your laptop will be.
Look out for clicking hyperlinks when browsing online – these will often open new tabs so make sure you close any you don’t need.
Enable power saving
Yup, just like that. All laptops come with this functionality. For a PC, you can access this from the right-hand side of your start bar or in the control panel. From there, choose Power Options then select Power Saver Mode. On a Mac, open System Preferences and then Energy Saver in the Hardware section; from there you can adjust your power settings to your preferences; don’t forget to do these under the battery option at the top, not just power adapter. These changes will help increase the runtime of your laptop.
Don’t overcharge your battery
Did you know that continually keeping your laptop on charge will eventually have a damaging effect? Over exhausting your charge can lead to bad battery health and be detrimental to its performance.
Regularly topping your charge up will ensure that you’ve got all the juice you need. Don’t let your battery percentage go below 20% or above 80% and you should get optimal battery life.
Heat can also run down the battery and overcharging can cause your laptop to overheat, so try to keep your laptop cool for a longer life.
Turn off wireless
If you’re not using the internet, switch off the wireless connection. This drains the power pack more than you realise and it’s good to get into the habit of turning things off when they’re not in use. Not to mention that sometimes apps or programmes automatically download or update if you’re connected to Wi-Fi.
Equally, disable the Bluetooth functionality if you don’t use this feature.
Alternatively, you could use a wired network card which allows you to be online without using a wireless connection. Wired network cards generally provide a faster and more secure connection, so they’re a good choice for a more reliable performance.
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