1. Stop the battery from dropping to zero
The most important thing to remember is not to let your battery run completely dry, in other words, down to 0%. This is what you must avoid above all. Another question many people ask is: should I charge my laptop to 100%? No! Charging fully to 100% is just as bad as letting it drain to an absolute 0%.
The only time you should let your battery discharge completely is when you want to install a new battery. For your information, this is done for the good of your device, as fully draining the battery will calibrate the battery gauge.
2. Turn on Battery Saver mode
Windows laptops allow you to enable several power-saving features to maximise your laptop battery runtime. However, as everything has a cost, you will have to put up with a noticeable drop in performance if you are a heavy user playing games or doing intensive editing work. On the other hand, if you use your laptop or PC for light tasks such as browsing, you won’t notice much difference.
In Windows operating systems, Battery Saver mode can be enabled by clicking on the battery level in the taskbar and dragging the slider to the left for best battery performance.
3. Keep your laptop away from both extremes: too hot or too cold
Excess is never good, and batteries are no exception. Extreme temperatures, whether hot or cold, do not just affect human beings but also machines such as laptops.
When it comes to laptop battery life in particular, extreme temperatures can force your machine to work harder, which can speed up the drain of the average laptop battery. Therefore, if you want to look after your laptop battery effectively, we recommend avoiding using it in extreme temperatures.
4. Unplug unused peripherals
People often tend to connect several peripherals such as external hard drives or webcams for their work. While these devices offer benefits and make tasks easier, they also tend to affect the different types of laptop batteries.
Even when you are not transferring data from your laptop to your hard drive or vice versa, the cable is still drawing power from your laptop. This means the battery is draining. Therefore, to optimise your laptop battery life, it is advisable to unplug all peripherals when you are not using them.
5. Turn off Wi‑Fi and Bluetooth
If you have downloaded a film and do not need Wi‑Fi to watch it, it is best to switch it off, as it will drain the battery in the background. Similarly, if you have not connected a Bluetooth speaker or headphones to your laptop, it is better to turn Bluetooth off to save your laptop battery.
Even if the battery consumption is minimal, the connection still uses some power. Why not avoid this and get the most out of your laptop battery? So, if you don’t need these connections, switch them off.
6. Turn down the screen brightness
In most situations, for example when you are sitting in a dark room, you do not need your screen to be very bright. Your laptop screen brightness is often the main cause of battery drain on your device. So unless you are in a very bright environment, it is advisable to reduce the screen brightness to extend your laptop battery life.
Besides lowering the brightness, you can also consider changing the display settings so that the screen turns off when you are not using your laptop. Although you can make these adjustments manually, Power Saving mode may be able to do the job for you automatically.
7. Install an SSD drive
Choosing a solid-state drive, i.e. an SSD, can save energy and therefore put less strain on the battery. Yes, you read that correctly: this means your laptop will go from a slow machine to a lightning-fast beast. As your laptop will run faster, you will be able to access files quickly and complete tasks in less time, which will help you save your laptop battery.
In addition, your laptop battery runtime will be significantly improved, as solid-state drives use flash memory, which consumes far less power than a mechanical hard drive.
8. Avoid leaving your laptop plugged in
Many professionals advise against leaving your laptop plugged in all the time. Laptops that remain plugged in permanently tend to have a lower cycle count than laptops whose batteries are kept between 15% and 85%.
Charging your laptop battery to 100% is not necessary at all, so avoid doing this if you want to preserve your laptop battery life.
9. Install the latest operating system
Updating your operating system not only brings new features to your laptop, but also delivers performance improvements. It can help programmes run more efficiently, which helps save battery power.
