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How to Estimate Laptop Battery Life

Before Buying
MATTHEW LUI (HTTPS://WWW.GUIDINGTECH.COM/AUTHOR/MATTLUI/) 05 Mar 2018

We all know how much manufacturers lie about battery life. In fact, researchers found that 86 percent of them
overstate it, (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/04/03/laptop-companies-lying-battery-life/) often by
testing with unrealistic usage conditions. The marketing numbers are unhelpful because you’d never be using
Microsoft Office for 14 hours straight!

We can take steps to reduce our battery life usage, (https://www.guidingtech.com/2778/tips-to-extend-laptop-

battery-life/) but, wouldn’t it be better if we just had the right number to start with?

Thankfully, there's one thing they can't lie about: battery specifications. In this guide, we'll help you calculate how
long you can actually expect your next laptop to last.

THE FORMULA
The calculation is quite simple to do. We’ll go into how to find the numbers in a moment, but here’ how we do it:

Find the battery specification in watt-hours (the units are Whr or Wh)
Divide by your expected wattage (in W). A computer under normal use will take 10-15 Watts.

For example, take a laptop with a 100Wh battery such as the newest MacBook Pro. Under normal use, it should
last 7-10 hours: 100Wh divided by 15 and 10 Watts gives us 7 to 10 hours respectively.

The result specifies how long your laptop should last, though it may be a tad lower due to a voltage drop-off at the
end of a charge. Many laptops are also set with sleep or hibernation modes that kick in when the battery drops
below five or ten percent charge to protect data, so keep that in mind too.

> NOTE: Don't be afraid to do some re-arranging. For example, multiply the battery life you want and your
estimated wattage and you'll find the watt-hour specification you should look for in your laptop search.

/
 ESTIMATING WATTAGE
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Finding your laptop’s wattage is the hardest bit. Here is a few ways we can find or estimate it.

A laptop under full load will use anywhere between 65-90W. For this reason, most gaming laptops under full load
can only last about an hour. To find exactly what your full load is, either:

Find the maximum wattage on the product specification page

Check the wattage on the back of your charging power brick (adaptor)

We can also roughly link up activities to the wattage they’ll take:

60-maximum: heavy gaming, video rendering

40-60W: light gaming
30-40W: video or photo editing
20-30W: watching HD video online
15-20W: watching HD video offline or using multiple applications
10-15W: normal use, such as web browsing (with not too many tabs), text editing or playing music
8-10W: minimum wattage with the screen on

There are obviously hundreds of factors that determine your power usage, but we’ll run through a few of them. You
should be looking at the upper ranges of the estimates above if you:

Have a habit of leaving applications running in the background

Buy a laptop with a dedicated graphics card (if it says you have Intel graphics, then you don’t have a dedicated
one)
Have your screen brightness up high
Plug in other devices, such as phone or headset
Have a screen size above 15 inches

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FINDING WATT HOURS

You should be able to find the watt-hour number on any descriptive specification sheet. The numbers are also
available from the specifications tab on online stores, third-party reviewers and official store pages such as the Dell
web store.

The number of cells in the battery isn’t helpful to our calculation, so ignore it. If you manage to find mAh and Volts,
you can convert that to watt hours with an online calculator. (https://milliamps-watts.appspot.com/)

In the minority of cases, you won’t find any of watt you need (get it, watt) and you might have to guess based on
laptops of a similar model or price range.

/
 You shouldn’t expect a rating to go higher than 100Wh due to lithium-ion flight restrictions
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(https://www.casa.gov.au/standard-page/travelling-safely-batteries). Anything higher needs to be approved by the
airline before a flight, so manufacturers aren’t making batteries above that point.

GOT ACCESS TO THE LAPTOP? FIND ITS WATT-HOURS

Both Windows 10 and Mac OS allow you to see information about your battery. If you’re friendly with salesperson
or have a friend with the laptop you’re considering, you can ask to quickly check its battery specifications
(https://www.guidingtech.com/66074/check-laptop-battery-health/).

On Windows 10, search for cmd, then click Command prompt.

Once open, type powercfg /batteryreport. Follow the path it outputs and you’ll find battery-report.html, which you
can view in a web browser.

Just look for Design capacity and divide the number you see by a thousand. If there’s a difference between Design
capacity and Full charge capacity, then the battery on the laptop you’re on has worn out slightly.

If you know what they’ve been up to in their most recent change, you can also find information on how rapidly their
battery is depleting by scrolling down.

We can do the same thing on a Mac. Hold the option key and click on the Apple menu. From here, select ‘System
information’ and navigate to Hardware → Power.

The numbers you want are Full Charge Capacity (mAh) and Voltage (mV) divided by a thousand. Drop these
numbers into conversion calculator (https://milliamps-watts.appspot.com/) to find watt-hours.

/
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Follow this step and you should always have enough information for the formula.

TIME TO RESEARCH
Now that you're a battery life expert, it's time to get back on your laptop hunt. If you're after great battery life, make
sure you take a look at the newest Lenovo ThinkPads (https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/c/thinkpad)
and Macbook Pros (https://www.apple.com/au/macbook-pro/?afid=p238%7Csxl2d2joJ-
dc_mtid_18707vxu38484_pcrid_235072527257_&cid=aos-au-kwgo-mac--slid-).

What's your top laptop pick so far? Let us know down in the comments below.

> SEE NEXT: Is Leaving Your Laptop Always Plugged in a Good Idea? (https://www.guidingtech.com/66018/keep-
laptop-plugged-in/)

Last updated on 5 Jul, 2019

The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and
authentic.

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READ NEXT 4 Useful Tips for Getting the Most Juice Out of Your MacBook’s Battery Life
(https://www.guidingtech.com/38131/macbook-battery/)

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WRITTEN BY
Matthew (https://www.guidingtech.com/author/mattlui/)
Matthew Lui
Lui
(https://www.guidingtech.com/author/mattlui/)
Matt's an Aussie math lover, PC enthusiast and hobby programmer who has applied his interests wherever he can online. You'll
find him studying or writing, but gaming when nobody's looking.

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