Quick, what is the biggest drain on your laptop's battery?
If you answered "the display," you're right -- for the most part.
The single biggest occupier of battery resources, day in and day out, is your laptop's display. More specifically, it's the that energy goes into powering the backlight that illuminates the pixels on your laptop's display.
The obvious move to extend battery life is then to lower your display's brightness. On either a Windows 10 laptop or an Apple MacBook, you can usually do this on the keyboard, but there are a couple other settings to change that will help automate the process.
First off, if you are concerned about your Windows 10 laptop's battery life, head to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Power Options and make sure you choose a Balanced or Power Saver plan. Use the High performance plan only when you need a boost for gaming or high-end graphics apps.
With Windows 10, there are additional power and display settings from the Settings button on the Windows 10 start screen. Tap the Home button, tap the Settings button on the left edge, and then tap System. From the left menu, tap Display and you'll find a slider for Adjust brightness level.
Next, tap Battery Saver from the left menu. Tap the toggle switch to turn on Battery saver. If the toggle switch is grayed out, unplug your laptop so it's running on battery power and the toggle switch will become active. Battery saver is a new feature with Windows 10 that limits background activity and push notifications to extend battery life.
By default, Battery saver turns on when your battery falls below 20 percent. Tap Battery saver settings to adjust this percentage. Also on the Battery saver settings page, you can check a box for Lower screen brightness while in battery saver to further extend battery life.
Lastly, tap Power & sleep from the left menu and select times for Windows 10 to turn the screen off and put your PC in sleep mode to avoid needlessly draining your battery while your laptop sits idle.
While the display is the primary culprit for draining your laptop's battery, I still want to leave you with two pieces of tried-and-true battery life advice.
1. Turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth when they aren't needed. Both wireless adapters use battery power to scan for networks and devices and keep you connected.
2. Unplug any peripherals when they aren't in use. An unpowered peripheral draws power from your laptop, which means it'll drain the battery when the laptop isn't plugged in.
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