Windows 11 has been around for a while now; three months to be precise, since its official release in October. As a Windows users using a laptop, a low battery can be a big headache, especially if you don’t have a plug-in charger nearby. In what follows we’ll tread through the best ways you can increase the battery life of your Windows 11. Let’s get started.
How to improve battery life of Windows 11
There are a variety of ways to stretch the battery juice of your Windows 11. Quick regular updates, tweaking your display settings, turning on power saver mode, and so on, are some of the things that instantly spring to mind. Don’t worry, we’ve covered all of them in detail, so let’s go through all of them one by one.
Let’s start with the most obvious one first…
1. Turn on battery saver
Battery Saver is a special Windows settings that runs your laptop on low resources. When you turn on the battery saver, some features of the operating system will get disabled or simply start working in a more economical capacity.
It conserves power by cutting down the performance and features of your laptop.
Here’s how you can turn on the battery saver and improve your Windows 11 battery life:
- Go to Start menu search bar, type in ‘settings,’ and select the Best match.
- Select System > Power & battery.
Now you have two ways to about this. You can either turn on the battery saver right away, or alternatively set it up such that it gets activated when it falls below a certain level. Let’s look at how you can turn it on now.
In the Power & battery, scroll down to the Battery section. There, click on Battery saver to open a dropdown list. To turn on the battery saver right away, click on Turn on now.
On the other hand, if you’d just like the battery saver to get activated only when the battery is at a certain level, then click on the scroll down menu in front of the ‘Turn battery saver on automatically at’. Choose your preference and your battery settings will be saved.
2. Tweak your display settings
A massive part of the battery gets consumed by your laptop’s display. Tweaking it, therefore, is a surefire way to increase your battery life.
So if you’re serious about getting the most out of your battery, lowering the display brightness is worth a shot. Here’s how you can get started:
- Go to the Start menu search bar, type in ‘settings,’ and select the Best match. Alternatively, press Windows key + I shortcut to launch the Settings app.
- Select System > Display.
- Use to slider under the Brightness & color section to tweak the screen brightness.
When you’re done, simply close the Settings app. You’ll notice that as soon as you lower the brightness, your battery consumption would’ve been cut down by a considerable margin.
Reduce the refresh rate
Refresh is the number of times an image changes on your screen. As a general rule, the higher the refresh, the smoother, and better will be your viewing experience. The only downside being a high battery consumption rate.
So if you’re short on battery, cutting down on the refresh rate might be something that can help you out. Here’s how you can get started:
On the Display tab in the Settings option, click on Advanced display. Now click on Choose a Refresh rate and set a lower refresh rate.
3. Update your Windows 11
This might come off as a little counterintuitive, as we never really associate battery life with an update. An update, however, is a crucial aspect of enhanced performance for any device.
Not only does it protect your system from new threats and viruses, but it also keeps different kinds of bugs, which pop-up in Windows from time to time, at bay.
So if you’re serious about slashing the battery consumption in your Windows 11, you really cannot neglect proper, regular updates. Here’s how you can get started with Windows 11 updates:
- Open the Windows Settings (press Windows Key + I).
- Click on Windows Update > Check for updates.
As soon as you do this, your system will start searching for the latest updates online. If any new updates are found, they’ll be installed in a few minutes.
Related: Why and how to update your Windows drivers
4. Set a dark background
A dark background comes at a lower end of power consumption expense. If you’re low on battery, you can set dark view for the time being and change it back as and when you feel comfortable.
Here’s how you can enable the dark background:
Go to Settings > Personalization > Background. From here, set a dark picture or a dark solid color.
Dark Theme
Similar to a dark background, using a dark theme will do its bit in lowering the battery expense in your Windows 11. Here’s how you can do set a dark theme:
Go to Settings > Personalization > Themes. Now click on Current Theme, and set a dark theme.
5. Play around with the power consumption options
Windows is smart enough to figure out the best power mode as per its present battery and resource strength. However, if you’re really low on the battery, you can tweak some power settings of your computer easily and possibly extend its life. Here’s how:
Launch the Settings app again and head to System > Troubleshoot > Other troubleshooters. From there, select navigate to the Power section and click on Run.
Improving the Windows 11 battery life
And that’s it. These were some of the top ways to the battery consumption of your Windows 11. Again, it goes without saying that some methods listed here will lower the performance or resolution of your Windows 11 but if you’re low on the battery, we’d say it is a fair bargain. Of course, you can always reverse the changes, so there’s no need to worry about any long-lasting effects on your operating system.
