9 Tips for making laptop battery last longer than expected

Follow these nine tips to make your laptop battery last longer:

1. Activate battery saver mode

When you are using your laptop on battery power, Windows shows your battery level in the taskbar. Click on the laptop battery level indicator and make sure any power-saving features are activated. While you may experience a noticeable performance loss, if you aren’t gaming, editing photos or videos, or completing tasks that require a lot of battery power, you won’t notice much of a difference.

2. Unplug unused peripherals

It is wise to unplug any peripherals — for instance, an external hard drive or webcam — while using battery power, according to PCMag. In addition to transferring data between your device and your laptop, that cable is also drawing power to the peripheral itself even when you are not using it. That is an obvious drain on the laptop battery.

3. Plug it in before it dies

So many users love to wait until their laptops are all but dead before they plug it in, which is bad for the battery. If possible, never drain your laptop battery below a 20 per cent charge. This extends the life of your battery as usage with a low charge puts a strain on the battery itself, and eventually reduces its charging capacity.

4. Keep your laptop out of hot and cold

According to DigitalTrends, it is better to use the laptop in situations where the ambient temperature is neither hot nor cold. Extreme temperature causes the computer to work harder, which in turn drains the laptop battery faster. Too much exposure to these extremes can also damage the battery itself, shortening its useful life.

5. Have enough RAM

Computer manufacturer, Dell, has an interesting suggestion to extend your laptop battery life: “Make sure it has enough RAM to do your tasks.” If a computer can store information in your RAM rather than on the hard drive, it will. This is a faster way to retrieve data, and keeps your hard drive from operating as much, which significantly drains your battery.

6. Don’t keep your laptop plugged in

Laptop users are warned not to keep their laptops plugged in all the time. It is found that laptops plugged in constantly actually have a lesser number of cycles (think of the battery drained, then plugged in to recharge — that is a cycle) than those who kept their batteries between 20 per cent and 80 per cent.

So don’t feel the need to always charge your battery fully; it’s not necessary. (Some computers may have a smart charging mode that will prioritise battery health, in which case you can keep it plugged in.)

7. Turn down screen brightness

Most of the time, you won’t need your screen to be super bright. We have actually warned against this in the past. According to HowToGeek, lower screen brightness settings help save laptop battery power, as the display is a major drain on most devices.

The site also recommends considering a change to your display settings so that your display turns off after a shorter period of non-use. Power saver mode may automatically make some of these adjustments.

8. Turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

Even if you’re connected to Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, your device may still be searching for other connections. Although it is slight, maintaining that connection does suck up some laptop battery power, according to PC Advisor. So if you have no need for connectivity, just turn it off until you need it.

9. Buy an SSD

Experts have continued to recommend that users swap out their hard drive for a Solid-state Drive if they don’t already have one. These drives operate on flash memory, which requires far less power to operate than a mechanical hard drive.

While it is not a huge improvement, an SSD has other benefits. Your computer will run much faster, since it will be able to access files quickly. You might actually save laptop battery power just because you’ll be able to get things done quicker, too.