How to save battery power on your phone and laptop

How to maximise charge saving on your laptop

To keep your laptop battery charged for as long as possible, all you need to do is follow some simple rules:

1. Customise your display

The brighter the screen of your laptop, the faster the device's battery drains. To adjust this setting, click "Start" — "PC Settings" — "Personalisation".

Optimising the maximum battery life of your laptop will also help by adjusting the dark mode setting. To do this, you need to:

• Click "Start" on the taskbar, then select "Settings".
• Open "Personalisation" and select "Colours".
• In the line "Colour selection" find and select "Dark".

2. Use a graphics card that is integrated into the processor

An integrated graphics card is more economical than a discrete graphics card. Therefore, using it helps to maximise the battery life of your notebook.

If your laptop is equipped with an NVIDIA graphics card, right-click on the desktop, then on "NVIDIA Control Panel" — "Manage 3D Settings" — "Global Settings" and under "Desired Graphics Processor" select "Integrated Graphics Hardware".

3. Adhere to the operating temperature regime

Remember that constantly overheating your notebook reduces battery life by more than 60%. Therefore, the better the device is cooled during operation, the longer the battery life. To prevent the gadget from overheating, you should regularly clean the coolers from dust and change the thermal paste. Also, do not put the laptop on your lap or on a plaid, as this worsens the cooling system and leads to a strong heating of the device. A good solution is to buy a special stand for working with a laptop.

4. Enable the charge saver function

Windows laptops have a special charge saver mode. It turns off power-consuming features such as background activities and push notifications when the battery is low, which can save up to 20% battery power. To switch, tap "Settings" — "Battery" — "Battery Saver". But keep in mind that this will slow down your device a bit.

5. Close unnecessary programmes

To save battery power, it's a good idea to close any tools you don't need and browser tabs you don't use.

You can use Task Manager to review programmes and close unnecessary ones. To do this, press Ctrl + Shift + Esc or right-click on the taskbar and select "Task Manager".

6. Close programmes running in the background

Programs that run in the background consume a lot of power. To close them, click "Start" — "Settings" — "Privacy" — "Background apps" and turn off the permission for programmes to run in the background.

7. Switch off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

Connecting to the Internet and Bluetooth drains your battery quickly, so it's a good idea to switch these options off when you put your laptop in Airplane Mode. This recommendation can be used when Internet is not needed, or when a wired connection is established and Wi-Fi can be turned off.

8. Calibrate the battery

To avoid accidental discharges, overcharging, and accidental shutdown of your laptop, it is recommended to calibrate the battery every 2-3 months.

1. Fully charge your laptop, then leave it charged for a few hours until the battery cools down.
2. Switch off the sleep mode setting, and instead set the device to automatically switch off at 5-15% charge.
3. Wait until the battery runs out and the laptop switches off automatically.
4. Charge the device again and switch it on.
5. Wait until the battery is 100% charged.

9. Upgrade the battery

If your laptop is more than three years old and your finances allow, it's a good idea to replace the battery with a newer one and the drive with a more energy-efficient SSD.

How to maximise battery life on your smartphone

Now we're sharing actionable tips on how to maximise battery life on your smartphone:

1. Set up the screen

To reduce battery consumption, switch off the automatic screen brightness and set it to the minimum brightness that is comfortable for you (this is especially effective if you have a smartphone with an AMOLED display). It is also worth reducing the screen timeout time. To do this, press "Settings" — "Display" — "Screen timeout" and select an acceptable time from the options offered.

2. Switch off features you do not need temporarily

Using Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, mobile Internet, vibration and other features drains the battery. To keep it running as long as possible, it's a good idea to switch off the features listed in the menu settings when you don't need them (or set your smartphone to airplane mode).

3. Remove widgets from the Home screen

News or weather widgets can also reduce battery life by constantly receiving and processing data in the background. To conserve power more economically, it is advisable to remove unnecessary widgets from your smartphone's home screen.

4. Disable automatic programme updates

Programmes on smartphones and other devices may update automatically from time to time. To extend battery life, we recommend that you disable this feature in the app shop.

5. Manage synchronisation

If your Gmail programs are set to automatically sync with your Google account, you can turn this option off and on individually for each of them. To do this, open your email program and select "Automatically sync Gmail".

6. Remove background tasks

Many apps are power-hungry and require a lot of power from the CPU and GPU when open in the background. To make sure your smartphone battery doesn't drain so quickly, it's worth switching off all programmes that aren't in use. To do this, tap "Battery" in Settings and set limits on the background use of individual programmes.

Or tap on the three vertical bars icon in the bottom left corner of the screen on Android, then "Close All" to close all apps.

7. Use power-saving mode

On most smartphone models, you can activate the power saver mode, which allows you to reduce the productivity of the gadget and reduce background processes. This makes the battery of the device last longer.

8. Adhere to the temperature settings

The temperature of your smartphone should not exceed 45°C during operation, as the lithium-ion battery quickly becomes unusable due to overheating. Therefore, do not leave your gadget in the sun for longer than 10-15 minutes and do not overload it excessively.

9. Use an original charger

The use of a non-original charger, apart from slow charging, is fraught with battery deterioration or spontaneous combustion due to poor quality assembly and elements in the design.

10. Keep the charge within the range of 30-80%

It is advisable to charge the battery a little at a time several times a day, keeping its charge between 30-80%. If possible, it is recommended to put the gadget "on refuelling" at 20-30% of the remaining charge.

Summary

Extending battery life during blackouts is a real possibility. The tips in this article will help you use your gadgets without lights for a few hours longer. However, keep in mind that after 300-500 charge/discharge cycles of a lithium-ion battery, its capacity decreases to 80% of its initial capacity, which reduces the battery life of your smartphone or laptop.