10 Tips to Prolong Trading Laptop Battery Life

When you are traveling from city to city, you need a reliable trading laptop. Finding power outlets is always an inconvenience, and sometimes you just can’t plug in. Lots of traders carry an extra backup battery. While that’s a good idea, you can also take some preventive measures to save power. Windows 10 laptops have custom setting options that can help. But due to certain default settings you probably never thought about, you are probably wasting a lot of energy. Here are some tips to help you increase the battery life of your trading laptop.

1. Change Background Image

A colorful background image can make your trading computer interesting. But background colors need to be processed. Your computer has to spend energy for image processing. If you change your background to simple black or one of the dark colors, then your laptop doesn’t have to waste that energy processing an image or lighting up pixels. You can go to Settings > Personalization > Background to change your laptop's background.

2. Dim Display Brightness

Just like a light bulb, a brighter display consumes more energy. Try changing the brightness in different environments to find your comfort level. You’ll be surprised that most of the time your display is actually too bright. Generally, you can change the brightness from the keyboard. Function keys with sun symbols are used for brightness control. If you can’t find them, you can always go to Settings > System > Display and turn down the brightness.

3. Turn Off Energy-Wasting Keyboard Features

Your keyboard is your laptop’s input device. Any extra feature like backlight or sound will waste energy. The backlight is typically the biggest culprit. It is built into most laptops to make it easier to work in low light conditions or at night. On your phone, there are light sensors that help with brightness control. But most laptops don’t have light sensors. So the backlights never adjust to the environment and end up draining battery life. Your Windows Mobility Center should have a control to turn off the keyboard backlight feature. Also, if you have custom programs that make your keyboard beep, turn those off. It will preserve energy.

4. Optimize Sleep Settings

When you are not using your laptop, you can save energy by putting it in sleep mode. Shorten the "time to fall asleep" period to save energy. You can find the sleep settings in Settings > System > Power & sleep. Experiment with different sleep and wake cycles. Compared to screen sleep, system sleep saves more energy but takes longer to wake up. To save the most power, use hibernate instead of sleep. In hibernate, your laptop isn’t using power at all.

5. Disable Bluetooth and WiFi

Nowadays, Windows 10 laptops have state-of-the-art Bluetooth and WiFi capabilities. You can use Bluetooth to connect headphones, input devices, game controllers, and more. And WiFi is a necessity for wirelessly connecting to the internet. But these features are energy consuming. Even when you are not using Bluetooth and WiFi, the system keeps checking for new connections. The searches can drain battery life. So when you don’t need these features, go to Settings > Devices > Bluetooth & other devices and turn the features off. Your battery will last longer.

6. Monitor App Power Usage

Not all apps are created equal. Software problems or intentional design can result in processes constantly running and wasting energy. As a user, you can’t fix the problem. But if you know the apps that are causing energy drainage, you can shut them down. On Windows 10, you can go to Settings > System > Battery and check the Battery usage by app to find the culprits. Turn off the apps that use too much energy.

7. Improve Email Syncs

You can check the email sync settings in Settings > Accounts > Email & app accounts. You have to go to the Manage tab and look at the Downloads tabs. Every download requires power. By lengthening the time between syncs, you’ll download less frequently and hence use less energy. Change the sync settings as your needs change from day to day, or even hour to hour. During busy trading days, you can always shorten the sync times.

8. Use Microsoft Edge Browser

Microsoft Edge browser is optimized for Windows 10 laptops and PCs. In some instances, it can save you up to 50% of your browser’s energy consumption compared to Chrome, Firefox, and other browsers.

9. Set Battery Saver Threshold

When your laptop is low on energy, Windows 10 kicks into battery saver mode, taking actions such as dimming the screen. Generally, the threshold is set at 20%. You can get to Settings > System > Battery and increase the threshold to prolong battery life.

10. Use New Windows 10 Battery Feature

As of the 2017 Fall Creators Update, Windows 10 has a battery slider feature that lets you personalize your battery usage. You can click on the battery icon and use the slider to select a level between Best battery life and Best performance. Windows will automatically optimize your laptop settings and apps to meet your needs.

Conclusion

Losing laptop power on the road can be disastrous for an active trader. Make sure you manage your trading laptop's battery power wisely using these tips. There are more trading computer tips like this in our buyers guide. Check out our "How To Buy a Trading Computer" e-book. We hope today's Quick Tip helped you. If you found this helpful, you'll want to check out the other computer How-To's I've created on this page. You can always call us if you have questions: 800-387-5250