Extend Laptop, Phone Battery Life by 2x times

All of the Modern day gadgets rely on batteries and often we run out of the juice when we need  them. Here are some Generic and specific Killer Tips that can help you Increase the Life.

Most Notebooks, gadgets use Lithium ion batteries. Life of such batteries can be extended using some Expert Tips and Tricks:

1. A Lithium Ion battery should never be charged to 100% or fully Discharged. The famous 80-20 rule is applicable here as well, though in a different way. Charging to 80% increases battery life. Most newer Laptops have this feature of “preserve battery life” by limiting it to 80%.
2. Don’t wait for full discharge, charge it frequently. Keeping the battery near to 80% always, gives better life. This is also what many vendors claim as “memory effect”.
3. Every battery has limited Full charge-discharge cycles. Of the order of 300+. In other words a typical phone/laptop battery can be fully charged/discharged 300 times. Doing more frequent charges, as specified in point #2, will increase overall life.
4. During First time use (when the battery is new) don`t use it till its fully charged. This is why it is always written on manuals “let the device charge for 2-3 hours”.
5. Best way to increase battery life is Not to use it. If you keep AC power plugged in on your laptop, keeping the battery at 80% (as in #1), your battery will last longer. Though discharging it once in a month would be must in such cases.
6. Surrounding temperature contributes a lot. Colder weather gives better battery life. So make sure your cellphone/laptop doesn`t overheat, if it does, find ways to keep it cool.
7. When not in use for long, store the battery keeping pt 1 and pt 6 in mind.
8. Most-Important: Never leave the machine plugged in all the time. Laptops are meant to be portable. Using it as a desktop that never runs on the battery will destroy your battery life.
   Discharge-Cycles are your friend. Never letting the battery complete a cycle will greatly diminish your run-time. Try to avoid charging the battery unless it’s drained past 30%. Any time the battery drains past 50% and charges more than 50% counts as a cycle. The farther you let it drain before the charge – the better its overall health will remain. 30 cycles in a year is not a good thing.

Apart from this there are specific tips to elongate battery life which are related to user’s usage:

1. Keep the screen brightness to as low as possible. This can reduce battery consumption by upto 40%.
2. Don’t do heavy tasks like gaming when running on battery. This often uses High CPU,graphics which drains battery faster.
3. Kill background processes that you are not using, multitasking is one serious battery killer.
4. For Cellphones only: USe headsets for long conversations. This will give you 40-70% improvement in talk time. Why? because when you hold the cellphone in hands, your body absorbs most of the RF. [Also See: Cell Phones WiFi and Health Effects]
5. For Laptops: Use tools like NHC: Notebook hardware control which can let you adjust CPU clock and hence save battery.

Follow all the steps and I bet you can double the battery juice. Related: Secrets for prolonging lithium-based battery life.

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