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4 Tips to Extend
the Life of your Laptop Battery
by Christopher Elliott
reprinted with permission
from the Microsoft Small Business Center
 On a recent stopover at Seattle-Tacoma International
Airport, I flipped open my laptop PC, hoping to chip away at
the 7,000-some e-mail messages that had accumulated since
leaving Anchorage, Alaska, four hours earlier.
"Don't even think
about it," my laptop screen flashed back at me
contemptuously (I'm paraphrasing the error message a little
here). "I'm out of juice."
And then, before I
could find an electrical outlet — Sea Tac has recently
increased the number of available outlets, by the way;
finally a reprieve for business travelers whose budget for
airline club membership has been cut — the laptop expired.
The irony, of
course, is that I had spent most of the previous week
researching this column on how to extend your PC's battery
life while you're on the road.
In a 2002 survey by
chipmaker Intel, 57% of laptop users said they wished their
batteries lasted longer. And that is wishful thinking,
according to Isidor Buchmann, president and founder of Cadex
Electronics in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He suggests that
although batteries become about 10% more efficient every
year, the average PC's power needs also increase by about
the same amount. Result: The average battery life is still
painfully short (just three to four hours for most laptop
models).
But you don't have
to end up sitting in a waiting area, staring at a darkened
screen, like I was. Here are four tried-and-true tips to
extend the life of your laptop battery. Why should you take
advice from a guy who couldn't keep his own unit charged?
Read on if you want to hear my sad excuse.
1. Power down
all nonessential functions. Switch it off if you're not
using it. Many business travelers already know that you
don't want to take the DVD player for a spin on the plane,
and that every time you hit "save" it can set the hard-drive
whirring, which devours even more power. "But users often
also forget to turn off their wireless card when they are no
longer using it but are still using their computer," notes
Mike Fuller, executive vice president of PC Laptops, a
Sandy, Utah, laptop manufacturer. "When the wireless card is
on, it still continually searches for networks." In Windows
XP, click on "Power Options" in your control panel. It
allows you to reduce the power consumption of any number of
your computer devices or of your entire system.
2. Stay out of
extreme temperatures. The technology that powers you
battery isn't terribly complicated. But it's important to
understand a little bit about the chemistry behind
batteries, and how that can affect your work. Specifically,
temperatures can affect the performance of your battery.
It's best to use (and especially charge) your batteries at
room temperatures. Extreme conditions can drain your battery
quickly. Also, avoid partial charges and use the battery
until it is dead. Battery experts liken partial charges —
and discharges — to eating a cup of lard every day. It
significantly shortens your battery's life. Considering that
a lithium-ion battery can explode if it's improperly used,
it could also shorten your life.
3. Let your
laptop do the saving. Not every computing device handles
a power source in the same way. Some of the more
sophisticated laptops, which are designed with business
travelers in mind, are misers when it comes to using power.
And that's a good thing — if you can remember to take
advantage of it. "Most users make the mistake of simply not
choosing to use a product's built-in ability to conserve
battery life," says Dan Coffman, a senior product manager
for PC manufacturer ViewSonic. How do you harness your PC's
built-in ability to save? Consult your user manual. Often,
calibrating your laptop is as easy as double-clicking on the
battery icon in the toolbar.
4. Always,
always carry a spare device that uses batteries. How
obvious is that? Well, if you're trying to keep under the
onerous new airline weight-limits, it isn't. But as Rick
Thompson, director of engineering at Valence Technology in
Austin, Texas, observes, "the availability of 'free' power
outside of your hotel room is not predictable." That's a
nice way of saying it. In fact, I sometimes think airport
terminals, car-rental facilities and hotels try to hide the
power outlets from us to keep us from accessing their free
power. Thompson recommends a system that can simultaneously
charge a second portable device such as a cell phone or PDA,
allowing you to multitask your battery operations.
If you've stuck
with me long enough to hear my pitiful excuse for running my
laptop battery down, here it is: My 2-year-old-son, Aren,
uses my laptop to watch "The Wiggles" while I'm on the road
(if you don't know who "The Wiggles" are, consider yourself
fortunate). Aren decided to pull the power chord while he
was watching an episode and used up all the power to run the
DVD player. By the time I got to the PC, all the juice was
gone.
I should probably
thank Aren. He taught me how fast a DVD can run down a
lithium-ion battery (in almost no time). Incidentally, he's
also demonstrated how impact-resistant a battery can be
(surprisingly) and that at least some of those warnings
about the battery coming into contact with liquids are
exaggerated. You'd be amazed at how well a battery holds up
to liquids, especially whole milk.
Reality (battery) check
If you rely on a
battery to get work done while you're away, you should,
however, give yourself a reality check. Because while
batteries can extend your productivity while you're on the
road — in a plane, at a remote site or sitting in hotel
lobby— they won't last you long enough. And if Buchmann is
correct, they never will last you long enough.
I mean, even if
you've taken all of these precautions, you can probably
still think of several instances where you had a brilliant
argument on the tip of your fingers, only to have the laptop
power down under a faltering battery. I took the steps, and
even without my toddler's interference, it was probably only
a matter of time before my battery ran dry at an inopportune
time.
The point is, while
these tips will help extend the life of your battery, they
won't make them last indefinitely. PC manufacturers may make
it seem as if their laptops will run forever, but most of us
know otherwise.
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