Laptops and notebooks are perfect on-the-go devices. They’re not as small as tablets, and while they don’t fit in your pocket, plenty of models are light and slim enough that you can easily carry them around and use them just like those bulky desktops.
Sadly, their biggest strength is also their biggest weakness, and I’m talking about the battery. If your laptop’s battery is depleting annoyingly fast, there are a few things you can do to make it last longer.
4 Easy ways to make your Windows laptop battery last longer
The no. 1 battery drainer on your laptop is its display since it uses a lot of energy to power its backlight, so we’re going to look at that first.
Lower your display’s brightness
This might seem like such an outdated recommendation and many users keep their laptop’s screen at full brightness thinking that small gain in battery life is not worth the compromise. But it actually is. Lowering the screen brightness makes a significant difference regarding battery life, and not just on laptops.
Any Windows laptop has physical keys you can use to control brightness levels, but there are some system settings which may come in handy as well.
The first thing you need to do is navigate to Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Power Options and select the ‘Power Saver’ or ‘Balanced’ plan. These may be using fewer system resources to conserve battery but they work very well when you’re doing simple tasks on your computer. You can easily switch to the ‘High performance‘ plan when you want to play a game or use a resource-intensive app.
Now, we’re going to access some more power and display settings so click or tap on the Start icon, and go to Settings -> System -> Display -> Adjust brightness.
Adjust the Battery Saver mode
Then, select Battery Saver and toggle on the option. If you’re seeing it greyed out, you’ll need to unplug the laptop so it switches to battery mode and you should be able to activate Battery Saver.
Battery Saver is a new Windows 10 feature, designed to reduce battery drain by limiting push notifications and background activity. It’s enabled by default at 20% battery level but you can change the percentage by selecting ‘Battery saver settings’. On the same screen, you can also opt to lower screen brightness while you’re laptop is running on battery by checking the box next to the related option.
Customize sleep mode and power options
Also related to operating system usage and display, it’s always a good idea to customize the sleep mode and power options. Go to Settings -> System again but this time select ‘Power & Sleep‘ from the menu on the left.
On this settings screen, you can change the time period after which the screen turns off while plugged in or on battery power. A similar set of options is available for the sleep mode.
Configure keyboard backlighting
Most laptops have backlit keyboards and those lights are battery drainers as well. We recommend you don’t keep the keyboard backlights on while you don’t actually need them.
You can also configure Windows 10 to turn off the keyboard backlights when your laptop remains idle for a specified period of time but the location of these settings depend on your laptop’s manufacturer. For most laptop models you can find instructions on the maker’s official website.
