Stop and think about your first laptop: professionals over the age of 40 remember the days when laptops were absolute monsters in terms of size — but with extremely limited performance (compared to their desktop counterparts) and just terrible battery life.
It’s amazing how far laptop technology has come since it hit the mainstream in the 90s: today’s laptops are widely capable in terms of performance, capable of matching all but the most extreme performance desktops.
And battery life is so much better than it used to be. Even in 2008, most laptop batteries fizzled out after around 4 hours, and four years prior you couldn’t expect more than three.
Today, it’s possible to get a sub-$1000 PC laptop with an advertised battery life of 13+ hours. And if you’re a Mac fan, you can do even better: the 2023 M3 Max MacBook Pro 16 boasts 21 hours of battery life!
But no matter how long that battery lasts when you first power up, it’s only a matter of time before you start getting diminishing returns.
The good news is that there are several steps you can take to improve your laptop’s battery life — and to extend its longevity over the long haul.
1. Understand How Performance Drain Works
First up isn’t as much a tip as it is a lesson in how laptops and batteries interact.
Modern laptop processors are designed to be power-efficient, using only as much power as is required for whatever you’re doing on your laptop. This is part of what’s behind all the multicore tech: some tasks — like composing an email or reading this post — don’t demand very much of your computer, and so the processor can get by on a single core. Other tasks — think gaming or watching video — are more demanding, which engages more cores.
Some laptops even have different types of cores for different things, low-power or efficiency cores for the light stuff and performance cores for the processor-intensive stuff.
So how does all of that relate to batteries? Simple: batteries store a finite amount of power. The more your laptop needs to use, the faster that battery runs out of juice.
2. Adjust Accordingly
Now comes the fun part: figuring out how much power various aspects of your laptop are taking up.
The good news is that you don’t have to be super scientific about this. Just take a quick survey of what’s running/open:
- Do you have a bunch of YouTube tabs open, just for later?
- Is your screen brightness cranked up?
- Do you have applications open that you aren’t using?
- Is BlueTooth turned on even though you aren’t using it?
- Is Wi-Fi turned on even though you’re using wired internet?
If you answered “yes” to any of these scenarios when on battery power, then you’re draining your battery for no real benefit. Bookmark then close the tabs; turn your brightness down to the lowest useful level; fully close unused applications; and toggle off protocols you aren’t using.
3. Don’t Go to Zero
Lithium-ion batteries have a few quirks. One is how their charging cycles work. If you let your battery run completely out, it will lose a tiny slice of its capacity — and never get it back. Try to plug back in when you hit 20%. And check your battery settings: auto-hibernation is annoying, but it will save your battery’s long-term battery health. Low-power or battery-saver mode can help, too.
Bonus tip: it’s a myth that keeping your laptop plugged in all the time will harm the battery. Yes, a constant charge to the battery would harm it, but today’s laptops and chargers are smart enough to stop charging when the battery is full.
All that said, batteries do have an expiration date. Eventually they degrade to a level that impacts performance. If you’ve reached that stage but it’s not time to replace your laptop, a new battery could be an option. Reach out to our team to learn about your options.