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Limited battery life is a major issue for most laptop owners.
Laptops are now lighter, smaller, and more powerful than ever before. But what hasn’t improved over the years is their battery life.
It would be great if laptops had at least a week of battery life, but that is not the case right now.
Fortunately, there’s a lot you can do to improve your laptop’s battery life. This article will teach you how you can improve your laptop’s battery life using simple tricks and hacks that actually work!
1. Reduce Screen Brightness
You can see that a significant amount of power is consumed by the display, so if you want to save your battery, then reduce the brightness of the display. You can also try different combinations of brightness settings and find out the best one for you.
Usually, you will find that the screen brightness button comes as a second function of one of the F keys. Search for the small sun symbol with up and down icons. To adjust, simply hold down the right function key and select up or down.
In addition, try not to use maximum brightness all the time.
2. Turn off keyboard backlights
To turn off keyboard backlighting when you don’t need it, find your laptop’s Function key and toggle the keyboard backlights off. Or you can control it in the Windows Mobility Center.
3. Keep it cool
Don’t ever heat up your laptop to the extent that it needs a thermal shutdown. Continuous thermal shutdowns will shorten the battery’s lifespan.
4. Avoid full discharges
Batteries usually have a limited number of charge cycles and would degrade eventually if you frequently charge and discharge the device. It is the best practice to keep your laptop connected to a charger all the time.
5. Close Unnecessary Programs and Apps
The number one cause of reduced battery life on laptops is running too many programs and apps at the same time. This drains your laptop’s CPU and GPU, which requires more power from the battery, resulting in lower battery life. So make sure to close unnecessary programs on your laptop as much as possible.
Use only what is required at any given time. If your device has an abundance of memory, keep necessary apps open to evade loading repetitively from the hard drive. Don’t let apps run in the background. And stop cloud storage services or video players that aren’t in use.
6. Turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth when not in use
In case you don’t know, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth both consume a significant amount of power, so if you want to save battery, then turn them off when not in use.
If you have the latest version of Windows 10, then it will also ask you whether you want to turn off these features or not when the battery level drops below 20%.
To turn off Wi-Fi temporarily, go to the taskbar and click the Wi-Fi icon. The Wi-Fi menu will pop up, showing all the available Wi-Fi networks. Click on either Wi-Fi or Airplane mode to turn off the Wi-Fi.
To turn off Bluetooth, in the Start button search box, type Bluetooth and select Bluetooth and other device settings. Next, slide the Bluetooth switch to the left.
7. Check your battery’s health
It’s always a good idea to first check the health of your battery. If the battery is old, no amount of tweaking will make it last longer. In fact, it could be time for a replacement.
For Apple MacBook laptop users, hold the Option key, and in the menu bar, click on the battery icon. It will show you the battery status. If you see a message displaying Service Battery or Replace Now, your battery is probably underperforming.
Or navigate to the System Information app and go to the Power tab. In Apple’s list, you will see the cycle count value against the rated maximums. It will let you know the number of cycles left.
On a side note, always make your research and buy a laptop online with long-lasting battery life.
8. Turn off peripherals
Unplug USB peripherals like USB sticks, webcams, and mice when not in use. Laptops usually have function buttons to switch off the built-in webcam. You can also mute your speakers when you’ve no need for sound.
9. Invest in hardware
If you can’t afford a laptop with eight or 12-cell batteries, you can go for portable laptop battery chargers to get extra hours for your devices. They usually come with adapters for most laptops and smartphones.
10. Use Edge
As per a CNET report, if you use the Edge browser, your battery runs 36 to 53% longer than Firefox, Chrome, or Opera.
11. Use manufacturer battery maintenance tools
Depending on your laptop manufacturer, you will get battery maintenance tools for the battery. You might also get recommendations according to the device’s battery for an extended lifespan.
The tools will let you know how much your battery should be drained and how long you should charge.
12. Plug in an External Mouse and Keyboard
Using a wireless mouse and keyboard can drain your laptop battery quickly. Plug in a wired keyboard or mouse when you need to get some work done and use the wireless ones for casual browsing. Using a backlit keyboard might also drain the battery.
That’s a Wrap!
So, these were some of the top tips that you can use to increase the battery life of your laptop.
In a world where we’re constantly plugged in and never unplugged, it’s crucial to make the most of our laptop batteries. Whether you’re at a conference, giving a presentation, or taking notes in class, your laptop battery life is precious.
You want to know how to keep your battery charged longer and increase your laptop battery life because you won’t be able to get any work done if it dies.
There are many reasons why your laptop battery drains quickly — background apps running on your computer, playing video games, using processor-heavy programs like Photoshop or Garageband. And listening to music and watching videos can zap your battery even faster.
To avoid it, use the aforementioned easy ways to fix this problem that only take a few minutes of your time!
