Laptop battery: some tricks to make it last much longer
Oh, the laptop battery. Our daily concern. How many times have you been in need of an outlet to connect your laptop because the battery has decided it’s time to take a break and let you down, right?
Laptop batteries tend to last very little. That’s a fact, at least for the time being, until some genius, to whom we’ll be everlastingly thankful, manage to think of one that can last much longer.
But, in the meantime, until we wait for that moment to arrive, any little trick to make the battery to last longer is welcomed. How could we achieve it? We’ll give you some ideas.
Don’t use it too much.
Even though it’s a pretty basic and obvious advice, we don’t realize it. Laptop batteries work in a similar way as cell phones batteries, which means they come with a determined number of charging cycles (around 500, although this depends on many variables). Getting over this number of cycles, either they completely stop working, or, which is more frequent, its effectiveness it’s reduced until they do not work anymore.
It’s clear: the continuous use of the battery is what contributes to its deterioration. For that reason, and every time you can, it’s advisable that you use the computer connected to the power supply (best without the battery placed on your laptop).
Nevertheless, don’t forget that not using it at all it’s of no good either; so try to use it from time to time, for example, once a week. Like this, you will reach a healthy balance to extend its lifespan.
When you use it, reduce the consume.
It’ll be beneficial not just to save battery time, but to prolong its lifespan in the long run. It’s a matter of logic: the less it consumes, the more will last each one of its charging cycles and so the battery will last longer.
There are multiple ways to reduce the battery consumption. Let’s have a look at some.
- Using battery save mode that almost all operative systems offer you.
- Reducing the brightness level on the screen.
- Turning the Wifi off when you are not using it.
- Unplug any peripherals that you’re not using (they tend to consume energy just by being plugged in).
- Don’t use screen savers (they consume much more than the screen’s automatic turn off.
- Use the computer’s hibernate mode when necessary.
- Don’t use the laptop to charge your cell phone. This one is a very common habit yet really ineffective. In the end, you’re charging your phone’s battery with the energy that the laptop’s battery is supplying, so you’re using the former in an unnecessary manner. If you have a free outlet available, use it to charge the phone. The battery of your laptop will thank you.
Be careful with the temperature.
It’s something that won’t normally cause you any problem, but in certain situations can be seriously damaging. The laptop’s battery should never bear temperatures lower than 0º or higher than 40º.
The truth is that if you use it in an indoors environment it will be really difficult to reach those temperatures, but if you use it outdoors, it could be the case that you use it carelessly (for example, while you are sunbathing in a placid August morning) without noticing that, what you’re doing is, not just bad, but the worst thing you could do to your laptop’s battery!
However, this is not the only thing that you should think of when it comes to your computer’s temperature. Sometimes, the computer itself can get overheated, even though, the environment’s temperature might not be excessive, for instance, because your compter’s fans are not properly working or the ventilation exit it’s blocked, so this is also something you should consider. Some unshakable habits that we are all guilty of, like resting the laptop on the sofa or on our lap, aren’t the healthiest habits when it comes to looking after your battery, as they can rise the computer’s temperature.
An important matter: how to charge it?
It’s something that anyone who has ever used a laptop knows about: the battery works great at the beginning but, as time goes by it starts losing its capacity. Even though it’s true that the mere use of the battery wears it off and that’s inevitable, what we can do is acquire some good charging habits which will make it worse.
There are opinions and doings of all kind. From having the laptop connected continuously to the land power supply (with the battery on) to recharge it paying attention to the cycles, meaning, to leave it completely discharge and then charge it up to 100%.
Although, none of this two options is the best. According to experts, the best you can do is to let the battery go down to 40% approximately and then charge it. Another important matter is what to do if you’re going to be a long period of time without using the computer. In this case, it would be ideal to leave it charged up to 50% (as if it was to be fully discharged or charged it would worsen it).
These are some of the ideas to make your laptop’s battery to last longer, but surely you have some more that we don’t know about. Would you like to share it with our readers? Great! You can do it by using the comments’ box down bellow this article.
But before you start typing frantically, how about if you spend a couple of minutes to learn about eHorus?
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