Laptop battery life

My one year old laptop's battery has slowly lost its longevity.  At first, with minimal apps running, it could go 4 hours or more.  Even under heavy use it was good for 2 hours.

Now, it can barely last an hour.  I dim the screen, disable network cards, keep the optical drive empty, and run as few programs as possible, but nothing seems to help.

In case it's relevant, it's a Dell Inspirion, and is NOT affected by the battery recall (though I wish it was now, so I could get a free new battery)

Well you can take measures so that they don't degrade as fast. For example about the last 10-15% of the recharging process tend to put the most strain on the battery. so if you don't need a 100% full one, charge it to 80-90%.

Also if you don't use your battery for an extended period of time (days to weeks), don't leave it at 100%. Discharge it to 50% and store it that way.

Finally, some laptops have the bad habit of running on battery power even when plugged in to AC with the result that the battery continually gets discharged a bit and then recharged to 100%. At least there used to be such laptops, maybe there aren't anymore today. If you want to keep it safe, take the battery out of the laptop when on AC.


Of course these can only extend the life of a new battery, not so much yours. And they still do degrade a lot. About half the capacity in 2 years might be realistic, if not a bit optimistic.