Battery life in your mobile devices is something most of us think about day by day. Our smartphones last the day if we’re lucky, and our laptops are even worse. Even though the batteries inside are larger, laptops have much heftier power needs, so they run through those batteries faster. That’s especially true when you’re doing resource-intensive work on your computer (things like photo or video editing, rendering, compiling, and so on).
Device makers have responded with a power-saving feature, called things like Low Power Mode and Energy Saver. These limit a device’s capability, sometimes literally slowing it down or lowering max screen brightness, to limit battery drain. It’s a trade of performance for battery life. That makes sense if you’re white-knuckling it home on 5%, relying on your smartphone map to get you there. But on your laptop, it can get in the way of everyday computing tasks.
Microsoft Windows already has an energy saver mode, but it’s an all-or-nothing sort of thing: you turn it on and kill your performance, or you turn it off and kill your battery. Not the most elegant approach.
That’s why Microsoft is now testing a new way to do this, called adaptive energy saver.
Introducing Adaptive Energy Saver
This new feature, when toggled on, pays attention to what kinds of computing work you’re doing and adapts how the computer performs to match.
You probably know that the processors doing all the computing work in your laptop are multi-core, allowing them to perform more tasks (calculations) simultaneously. If you’re rendering video or gaming, then all those cores are running at max. But if you’re just reading email or watching a video, you don’t need all those cores. Your computer can operate just fine on one or two.
Microsoft says it’s doing something similar here, slowing down your CPU and GPU when you aren’t really using them, then spinning them back up when you do need them.
You may be wondering: why does this matter? Great question— there are a few reasons.
Battery Life Matters More Than You Think
Businesses should care about battery life for more reasons than the obvious one. Yes, a dead battery in the middle of any business context is a problem, but for most users, it’s usually an avoidable one. There are exceptions: busy field reps and executives who travel will more frequently find themselves in situations where charging isn’t easy and battery life is a big deal. But everyday office-dwellers or remote employees can operate plugged-in, even if they don’t always.
The reality is, for most businesses and most people, short battery life is more of a nuisance than an operational impediment.
But here’s the big secret: batteries age. The older they get, the worse they perform — and this “age” is measured more in cycles than days or months. Every time you drain and then charge a modern lithium ion battery (that’s the type in pretty much every laptop and mobile device in 2025), that’s a cycle. And every cycle diminishes the battery’s capacity just a little more.
With many of today’s laptops, you can’t easily swap out or replace the battery. So when the battery’s gone, the device is either gone or in need of a costly repair requiring specialist tools.
So to recap: even if running out of juice can usually be avoided, poor battery life leads to more frequent draining and charging, which can cause you to need to replace or repair equipment faster.
Align Your Hardware to Your Business Needs
Better dynamic power management is a good thing that will help extend the life of devices and make a positive impact on the environment. But zoom out a little, and an even more important question is how to align the hardware your business uses with the operational needs you have. This is tough to get right, but we’ve helped dozens of businesses refine their IT approaches to be more efficient, resilient, and cost-effective.
Got questions? Reach out to our team to discuss your needs.