Just hit 8 hours of battery on my 3-year-old laptop and I actually did a little dance at my desk

I was stuck at a coffee shop in Portland waiting for a delayed train and my laptop still had 15% left after a full work day, which has never happened before, and now I'm wondering if anyone else has gotten way more life out of their machine than expected just by dimming the screen and closing a few tabs.

2 comments

2 Comments

ivanlewis7d ago

Read somewhere that lithium ion batteries actually hit a sweet spot after a couple years where they just kind of settle in and hold charge better than when they were brand new. Something about the chemical layers inside forming a more stable structure over time. I had the same thing happen with my old Dell, thought it was dying but then it just started lasting way longer out of nowhere. Screen brightness is the biggest vampire for sure, I keep mine at like 40% now and turned off all the background apps that run at startup. Closing browser tabs is huge too, Chrome especially just eats power like crazy with every little script running.

black.jordan7d ago

Wait, is that actually true about lithium batteries settling in after a couple years? I've always heard the opposite, that they just slowly lose capacity over time no matter what you do. @ivanlewis I'm not saying you're wrong, but I've had three laptops now and every single one of them started holding less charge after the first year or two, not more. Screen dimming and closing tabs definitely helps stretch what you've got left though, I'll give you that. I keep my brightness around 30% most days and kill any browser tab I'm not actively looking at, makes a huge difference.