How Can I Maximize My Mobile Computer's Battery Life?

It's your worst nightmare. While you're standing in front of potential clients and delivering your presentation, your laptop, which is attached to the projector, displays a pop-up window reminding you that the battery is about to run out. As you rummage through your computer bag to find the power cord, the screen goes blank. You lose your momentum and the meeting screeches to a halt. You plug your computer back in, reboot and pick up where you left off, but the energy in the room is gone.

Tony Salinas, senior systems engineer and consultant at Dell, says there are a number of factors that can affect your laptop's battery life, including:  

• Applications that run while the computer is on, such as Microsoft® Office, Netscape, Lotus Notes® or Norton™ AntiVirus programs
• Display power (power consumed to create the image on the computer screen)
• The rest of the system (power consumed by the remaining nonspecified electronics in the system such as the processor and memory)

While most computer companies advertise battery life estimates, actual battery life that you experience can differ significantly, depending mainly on how the system is used.

If you're feeling frustrated because your laptop battery runs out at inopportune times, you might want to consider upgrading to a model designed to run for extended periods of time. Some of the Dell Latitude™ laptops, for example, give you the flexibility to work for up to 19 hours without recharging. That's roughly the amount of time it takes to fly from Los Angeles to Hong Kong.

For those not ready to buy a new mobile computer just yet, Salinas offers these five tips to help you maximize your current system battery's life cycle:

1. Manage brightness — The single largest consumer of power is the display lamp. The brighter the lamp, the more power the system consumes. "At higher brightness settings, you only get up to 65 percent of the battery life when compared to reducing the brightness," says Salinas. Because the brightness setting has such a powerful impact on battery life, most laptops are configured to automatically dim the display as the AC power is removed and to increase the brightness when plugged back into an AC outlet. To save even more power, display brightness can be manually adjusted using the Fn (down) keys on the keyboards of Dell Vostro™ and Latitude laptops, and Dell™ Precision™ mobile workstation systems.
2. Power up; power down — In addition to adjusting display brightness, users can enable device power management capabilities. Microsoft Windows® operating systems provide the ability to extend battery life by trading-off power consumption and performance using power schemes. These are accessible through the power options icon in the control panel. Dell Latitude laptops also come equipped with Dell QuickSet software to make managing your settings, including screen brightness, easy. QuickSet will display battery life status when you press Fn+F3 and will proactively warn you through a pop-up window when your battery health reaches 50 percent (or less) of design capacity. For best battery life, Salinas recommends selecting the Portable/Laptop or Max Battery power schemes, which save power by turning off devices such as the display and hard drive during periods of inactivity and adjusting processor power. Portable/Laptop dynamically adjusts processor power and performance based on the demands of the application running on the system. When performance demands are low, the processor is kept in a low power and performance state. When demands are higher, the processor runs at higher power and performance levels up to its maximum capacity.
3. Use what you need — Turn off unused devices, advises Salinas. Good examples are WiFi devices. If you don't need to be connected to the Internet, disable the connection. Certain WiFi devices can consume significant power, usually because they must maintain a minimum amount of traffic between the computer and the nearby wireless access points. Good news! Newer wireless devices include power management features, making this less of a concern. Many new laptops provide a hard-wired WiFi radio On/Off switch for this reason. Salinas points to James Martin, editor for PC World, who suggests, "Always turn off WiFi, Bluetooth® and cellular modems when they're not needed. These wireless network technologies can be a significant drain on your notebook battery's charge. Many newer notebooks have buttons to turn wireless connections on and off. You can also go to Start, Connect to, Show all connections, and then select the connection you want to enable or disable." Salinas also mentions that it is a good practice to disconnect external DVD drives, Webcams or any peripherals you are not using.
4. Manage configurations and your hard drive — Your hard drive is in constant motion while the computer is turned on, spinning to locate previously saved data. Defragmenting your hard drive (optimizing the placement of data) will enable the drive to find information more quickly and reduce the speed. If you notice a high degree of hard drive activity during normal usage, your system may be compensating for your lack of system memory by relying on its hard disk for virtual memory. In this case, adding more memory to your laptop can result in additional battery life. The same holds true if you are running multiple applications. To save on battery life, limit the number of applications you have opened at the same time, especially when you have limited system memory. Since many applications load into system memory upon booting, it is a good practice to limit the number of start-up applications to the ones you use on a regular basis. You can do this by running the 'msconfig' command from the Run feature in Windows XP and System Configuration from the Search bar in Windows Vista®. Click on the Start menu and the respective commands will be featured.
5. Condition for performance — For new laptops, the industry standard suggests you give the battery a full charge. Then, drain the battery completely. Repeat the process at least two or three times. This helps establish a memory line and conditions the battery to hold the maximum charge possible. To prolong the battery's overall life, it is also appropriate to disconnect the battery from your laptop if it will be plugged in for extended periods of time. You can recondition older batteries as well. "My battery was not performing as well as it had in the past," says David Davis, general manager of Provençal Home, an Austin-based retailer. "By going through this conditioning process four or five times on our notebooks, we were able to carry out our daily tasks in a more efficient and reliable manner." Reconditioning will help increase battery life, though it will never be as good as if the battery were new. Depending on the productivity gains you get from reconditioning and on the age of your laptop computer, you may want to consider investing in a new battery or system altogether.

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In summary, to extend battery life you should:

• Lower the display brightness when running on battery power
• Enable OS and device power management capabilities to extend battery life
• Disable devices that are not used when running on battery power

Dell continues to work with suppliers, technology partners and industry groups to drive industry initiatives and technologies that can yield power efficiencies in portable products, including extending battery life through improvements in battery technology and power management, and minimizing the power consumed by system components.

So the next time you are giving a presentation, keep these tips in mind to maximize your computer's battery life.

Additional Tips From Salinas  

• Eventually, you will need to charge your battery more often. When the battery does not maintain at least an hour's worth of charge, it may be time to get a new battery.
• If you're buying a laptop, be sure it is equipped with a lithium-ion battery and not older nickel cadmium-based batteries.
• If you travel frequently, it's best to purchase a second battery and use both batteries equally.