Extend the Run Time of Your Laptop's Battery Life

By Stephen Almanson

My favorite toy is my laptop computer. I love the flexibility it gives me. Sure I can replicate most of the things I do on my cel phone, but I would much rather use my laptop. I mean really, who would want to watch a video on the small screen of their cel phone when a laptop is pretty convenient. The only real complaint most people have is the battery life is not long enough.

Statistics say that the current average battery life for a rechargeable laptop battery life is 78 minutes. So after an hour, you need to start hunting for an outlet or you need to shut things down. This can be inconvenient to say the least. An hour is not very much time at all.

But there are a few things you can do to extend those 78 minutes. If you are watching a DVD or streaming video, or if you are playing games, you will drain your battery much more rapidly than if you are running a simple program such as email or a word processor. The way you use your laptop can provide you with more or less battery time.

One of the easiest things you can do is to lower the brightness of your screen. The brighter your display, the more batter you will use. Obviously, you need to keep your display bright enough so that you can see what you are doing. And some laptops automatically dim when you move to battery power. But if yours does not, or even if it does, it is a good practice to keep your monitor dimmer when you are on battery power. You will also want to lower your screen resolution. And if you can limit your use of graphics, that too will help your battery last longer.

External devices are another huge drain on battery power. Use your touchpad instead of a USB mouse. Any peripheral device will drain your battery power and it is never a good idea to charge your devices through your laptop when your laptop is on battery power.

Another thing to keep in mind is that multi-tasking uses more battery power than simply doing one thing at a time. Background programs also eat up battery power, so you should shut down anything that may be active in the background.

As previously mentioned, simple programs such as email and word processing or spreadsheet programs are better to use when you are trying to conserve battery than gaming. If you are using a program that has auto-save enabled, you should turn this off. Just remember to save your work occasionally, especially as you get closer to running out of battery.

Hibernate is a better option than standby if you are trying to preserve battery power. Newer computers also have options in the control panel which allow you to maximize your battery (max battery option).

Finally, newer laptops are more energy efficient than older ones. So it may be time to bite the bullet and buy yourself a new laptop. There are even some out there that promise batteries which last all day. Do your research to find out what will best suit your needs. - 23594

About the Author:

Stephen Almanson, who has been writing about computers for more than thirty years, has created a guide which explains in detail how you can locate reconditioned laptop computers and used laptops under $200. You can find this, and other information about how to get the cheapest notebooks at his site.