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Idea on battery life I should get?

gman713

Member
Could someone post their normal battery life for their SP4 Core i7 model? I'm trying to determine if my battery life is normal or not.
 

hughlle

Super Moderator
Staff member
There is really no such thing as "normal" battery life. You need to specify what you do (including how often and how long), what applications, screen brightness etc.
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
Depending on what you have installed and how you use it, battery life can range from 4.5 hours to 9 hours
 
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gman713

Member
Using OneNote, taking notes. Brightness on at about 20-30%, power on balanced mode, some regular web browsing gets me about 4.5 hours before dying. It was purchased brand new back in January. I haven't received the latest up date to Windows so maybe it gets better?
 

hughlle

Super Moderator
Staff member
Using OneNote, taking notes. Brightness on at about 20-30%, power on balanced mode, some regular web browsing gets me about 4.5 hours before dying. It was purchased brand new back in January. I haven't received the latest up date to Windows so maybe it gets better?

I can't comment t on the i7 model, but for such light usage I doubt that there is much difference, but in pretty much the same!e scenario I get close to 10 hours on my i5. I've never timed it for ten hours, but a 1 hour lecture with onenote open and googling here and there results in 10% drain (when the mew windows insider builds aren't having some fun with me)
 
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gman713

Member
The only thing I can think that I did differently is that I followed instructions somewhere on this forum to get the high power mode unlocked, however I always keep it on balanced. Maybe by changing the power options caused more battery to be used up? Is there a way to reset the power options back to where high power mode is not visible?
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
What are you using as a browser? Chrome can cut your battery life by 25-50% and overly aggressive antivirus can have an impact add well....
 

Philtastic

Active Member
I can't comment t on the i7 model, but for such light usage I doubt that there is much difference, but in pretty much the same!e scenario I get close to 10 hours on my i5. I've never timed it for ten hours, but a 1 hour lecture with onenote open and googling here and there results in 10% drain (when the mew windows insider builds aren't having some fun with me)
With that 10% drop from 100% in 1 hour, you will probably get closer to 7-8 hours which is what I generally get when I use it so much as to drain the entire battery. The first 10% is relatively slow while the final ~25% drains significantly faster than the rest.
 
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gman713

Member
I'm using Edge right now and that is all that I have open... I went from 100% to 92% in 30 minutes and showing 1 hour and 46 minutes remaining. Brightness is at 15%
 
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gman713

Member
I booted back up at home and down to 85% after over an hour. The time left seems to fluctuate. I saw it go up as high as 12 hours and now it shows 4 hours and 52 minutes. Maybe its not as bad as I originally thought.

On a side note, I was trying to use DirectTv Now on Edge and got a message it requires Chrome or Safari. That kind of sucks when trying to save on battery.
 

Philtastic

Active Member
The time left estimate is basically completely useless. It takes whatever the most recently polled battery usage is (maybe once every 5-10'ish minutes) and assumes that this short sample is the usage for the entire time, thus will only be accurate if you maintain that amount of system usage.
 
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