Technology has brought us a long way. We don’t have flying cars, but we do have laptops that seem to want to die when we’re in the middle of an important project.
The nerve. And it didn’t even ask if you’d appreciate it.
No one wants to be caught up in this scenario. So how, oh how, do you get your battery to go an extra 10, 20, 30 minutes… but also live longer too? Is it even possible? Oof. I get this question far too many times.
Lithium-ion Batteries…
A laptop battery uses a lithium-ion battery, just like cell phones, iPads, scooters, toys, and even cars. As such, these batteries have a limited number of charge cycles. What’s a charge cycle, you ask? A charge cycle is a full battery discharge to 0% capacity.
And there’s the key: don’t let your laptop battery run out completely.
If your battery hits 0%, then it counts as an official charge cycle. It’s as simple as that. If you can avoid letting it die completely, then you’re cheating death. Bonus points if you can avoid letting your laptop fall below 20%. Check out Hibernation Mode below…
But wait a minute…
I hear what you’re thinking… “didn’t you just say that I could get an extra 20-30 minutes from my laptop?!”, “Why are you now telling me to turn it off sooner?!”
Hear me out. Your laptop is exhausting itself by doing things that it doesn’t really need to be doing. For example, did you know that your laptop (and phone) is continually checking to see if there’s any Bluetooth device or WiFi hotspot nearby? This is battery-intensive. If you’re not planning to use Bluetooth, then turn it off! The same goes for WiFi. You can also dim your laptop screen’s brightness. These are all major power drains.
Another tip is to clean up the applications running in your background or at startup. Is OneDrive trying to sync? Look up putting your laptop WiFi in “metered mode,” which limits what your laptop does on certain WiFi hotspots.
Leave your laptop plugged in?
Contrary to popular belief, keeping your laptop plugged in will not harm your battery. Modern devices are smarter than you think and have protocols in place to keep your battery comfy.
Hibernation Mode!
Yes! This is how you can automatically prevent your laptop battery from hitting 0%. You can access your laptop’s power settings to customize your battery and hibernation preferences.
Remember Battery Saver mode! It’s a magician at preserving power when your battery is running low. Same with your phone!
Final tips…
Stay on top of software updates! These updates often include optimizations in how a program can minimize energy consumption. There are also some battery apps that can show you real-time power hogs and let you disable them. Pew pew!
We help businesses get the most of their devices for as long as possible. It’s what we do. If we can do the same for you, just let me know! Thank you for reading!