Part 1: Tips to get more out of your Laptop battery

I want to share with you some simple tips on how to get more out of your Laptop or Tablet battery. By following these simple steps you can ensure a better battery life for your device.

i. If you intend to travel or leave your Laptop/Tablet without using it for a while, then its better not to leave it with zero charge or a full charge, as both of these options can reduce the lifespan of your battery. Beware among the two, leaving a zero charge is the worst, as it may not recharge again. Similarly, if you are going to be storing the Laptop/Tablet for a while, manufacturers recommend you store batteries or battery-powered devices with a half-charge.

ii. Just like any other device, Batteries do not last forever, and as they become old they become less efficient. Windows will notify you if your battery's health is not good, but you can also check it by yourself using a hidden Windows command. Simply, press start Command Prompt and run it as Administrator. Now type "power cfg /batteryreport" and press Enter.

Windows will now display an HTML document called Battery-Report in the root of your C: drive, and two key bits of information are available: the design capacity, which is how much power the battery is supposed to stored, and the full charge capacity, which is what you're actually getting. If you observe a huge difference between the two, maybe it is time for a new battery.

iii. Also do not conclude that an unhappy battery is a broken battery, it may be that your battery needs to be recalibrated. An improperly calibrated battery can give Windows the wrong information about its remaining charge, and this may even shut your system down without warning.

iv. Many producers provide utilities to do recalibration for you, but if not it's an easy do it yourself job - fully charge it, let it sit for a while to cool down, then go into power options and set critical battery level to 5% and critical battery action to Hibernate. Run the computer until it shuts down, let it sit for a few hours and then charge it back up.

v. Windows users can choose the Balanced or Power Saver power plans to reduce battery drain. Balanced predicts when you need power and when you don't, while Power Saver gives preference for battery saving over performance. You can also adjust the plans to fully customise your Laptop power saving settings.

Continue to read more on my next post...