PCMech Forums - View Single Post - Tips to extend battery life on mobile devices

Statica · 10-29-2005, 01:02 PM

It depends on how exactly you use your battery too
* always charge a new laptop battery to the max without using it.. its usually a longer than usual charge
* if the laptop is on charge (desktop replacement); then remove the battery after a full charge. Remember to discharge and recharge every few weeks or so
* if you use it on hybrid .. plugged in sometimes; mobile sometimes .. try to let it run down before recharging it; frequent stop gap charges dont usually equate to long battery life
* to extend battery life for working conditions .. learn to use the power management. Most laptops come with pretty powerful strategies especially if your battery has a pure mobility processor .. learn to use it
* learn to use suspend to ram and hibernate
* learn to use hardware profiles and selective and quick disabling of hardware you dont need to use. I see people use the button for the wireless radio on most laptops, as a way to "conserve" battery power as they assume it turns off wifi .. it doesnt! All it does is turn off the antenna .. the wifi card is active and is quite happily searching for a network without an antenna. While typing a document on a plane, you really dont need your processor running away at max; feel free to reduce it.
* while it makes for a good marketting campaign, sitting on a park bench under the sun does not make good sense for battery power Heat always reduces battery efficiency, also reduces the need for the cooling fans to kick in constantly
* Try looking at alternative vendors that sell compatible batteries for your system. Usually, the more popular your mfger/model the more the alternatives there are for choices on battery mfgers. It's not to say that they are better than the OEM that put its name on your laptop; but its a worthy consideration.
* Usually there are also options to the batteries you can use. As a background - the batteries that are used in laptops are actually battery "packs" - meaning multiple "batteries" or "cells" bunched together to form a pack. This means that you can sometimes find choices for more "cells" per pack. This, of course, increases the amt of time the battery will supply charge and will increase the number of discharge cycles, but usually comes at a weight and price premium. For ex. for a dell latitude 100L an 8cell battery is a 65whr one & usually lasts about 300 discharge cycles and is about 1.03lb; while a 12cell battery is about 500 discharge cycles and weighs about 1.35 lb for 96whr .. the difference in cost .. about $20.
* screen brightness has a huge effect on battery life. From my informal observations, leaving the screen at full brightness as opposed to minimum or one notch from the bottom can easily halve battery life.
From Nokiafan05-
"Tell the phone to not always scan for a network and set it to home network manually can save battery time. Also a big tip for anyone with a WIFI enabled device. If you have a strong wifi signal, then turn on power saving mode. This will tremondously make a difference on your battery life. Leaving the power saving mode off will drain your batter like you wouldn't believe."

This thread is a compilation from points raised on this board from various members (thanx!) If you believe that there are more tips that can be included please post to this or PM me.

PS: If you have questions regarding your battery .. please start a new thread.

10-29-2005, 01:02 PM	#1
Statica Join Date: Jun 1999 Posts: 9,231	Tips to extend battery life on mobile devices It depends on how exactly you use your battery too * always charge a new laptop battery to the max without using it.. its usually a longer than usual charge * if the laptop is on charge (desktop replacement); then remove the battery after a full charge. Remember to discharge and recharge every few weeks or so * if you use it on hybrid .. plugged in sometimes; mobile sometimes .. try to let it run down before recharging it; frequent stop gap charges dont usually equate to long battery life * to extend battery life for working conditions .. learn to use the power management. Most laptops come with pretty powerful strategies especially if your battery has a pure mobility processor .. learn to use it * learn to use suspend to ram and hibernate * learn to use hardware profiles and selective and quick disabling of hardware you dont need to use. I see people use the button for the wireless radio on most laptops, as a way to "conserve" battery power as they assume it turns off wifi .. it doesnt! All it does is turn off the antenna .. the wifi card is active and is quite happily searching for a network without an antenna. While typing a document on a plane, you really dont need your processor running away at max; feel free to reduce it. * while it makes for a good marketting campaign, sitting on a park bench under the sun does not make good sense for battery power Heat always reduces battery efficiency, also reduces the need for the cooling fans to kick in constantly * Try looking at alternative vendors that sell compatible batteries for your system. Usually, the more popular your mfger/model the more the alternatives there are for choices on battery mfgers. It's not to say that they are better than the OEM that put its name on your laptop; but its a worthy consideration. * Usually there are also options to the batteries you can use. As a background - the batteries that are used in laptops are actually battery "packs" - meaning multiple "batteries" or "cells" bunched together to form a pack. This means that you can sometimes find choices for more "cells" per pack. This, of course, increases the amt of time the battery will supply charge and will increase the number of discharge cycles, but usually comes at a weight and price premium. For ex. for a dell latitude 100L an 8cell battery is a 65whr one & usually lasts about 300 discharge cycles and is about 1.03lb; while a 12cell battery is about 500 discharge cycles and weighs about 1.35 lb for 96whr .. the difference in cost .. about $20. * screen brightness has a huge effect on battery life. From my informal observations, leaving the screen at full brightness as opposed to minimum or one notch from the bottom can easily halve battery life. From Nokiafan05- "Tell the phone to not always scan for a network and set it to home network manually can save battery time. Also a big tip for anyone with a WIFI enabled device. If you have a strong wifi signal, then turn on power saving mode. This will tremondously make a difference on your battery life. Leaving the power saving mode off will drain your batter like you wouldn't believe." This thread is a compilation from points raised on this board from various members (thanx!) If you believe that there are more tips that can be included please post to this or PM me. PS: If you have questions regarding your battery .. please start a new thread. Last edited by Statica; 10-10-2007 at 10:39 AM.