How long should battery power last on a laptop?

Chances are, if your HP is anything like my old one (bought it in college, so roughly 5 years ago), you won't get too much better than, say, an hour to an hour-point-five through battery alone. It's good for short bursts, but for any kind of long haul the bigger your laptop is, the shorter the battery life will likely be.

You might be able to go onto HP's site though and find an extra battery, should help a bit for the time spent away from a plug. :-)

That's about right. You may be able to get a fraction more power by turning down the brightness on the screen and turning everything down, but not much more. Word does use up a little more power than other writing apps because of the hunger of the app but not by much.

My hp laptop (only a year old, by the way) only lasted little over 2 hours at the beginning and by now it's down to half an hour which makes pretty pointless to use it unplugged. But it's 17 inches and too big to take it anywhere anyway.
Now I only use it as a desktop computer that can rather easily be transported from desk to desk and bought myself a little (10') Eee netbook that lasts up to 8 hours and is perfect for university.

Age of the battery AND what programs you are running will result in differences in battery performance. If you are only running a word processing program, no music, no online connection, you'll use less battery. Over time, the battery will hold less power, but also if you don't routinely allow your battery to completely recharge before unplugging it from the wall, it will actually "remember" to hold less memory because it isn't charged fully...creating a false memory max. I know that sounds crazy, but I heard it from a pretty reliable source and it seemed to be true with my older laptops.

Kristy Renner

I'd suggest googling the specs to see what your estimated battery life is suppose to be and then compare it.

My little bitty Acer has about a 3 hour battery life which is somewhat useless because it drains while in hibernation when I close the screen so, like you, I tend to just keep it plugged in. The power cord is long enough to give me the freedom I wanted with a laptop.

"Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved." - W. Somerset Maugham

2007 - No title - epic fail
2008 - Ready to Fall - 9,000~ - Repeat of fail
2009 - These Triggers

3.5 hours on a 3 year old HP sounds pretty good, actually. Be sure to turn off wireless network and bluetooth to minimize power consumption.

As for "normal" battery life, it varies tremendously with age and model. My approximately 6 year old PowerBook lasts 20 minutes or so (battery completely worn out), my brand new MacBook Pro can easily go 8 hours with the screen dimmed and a minimum of software running.

running my dell, on powersaver, internet only dimmed screen, I can usually get about six hours if I don't ask too much.

but like everyone else says, that's going to change a lot from model to model, and brand to brand

Click!

Huh, my year-old Acer netbook can only hold 1 hour 30 minutes of battery on a full charge. 2 hours, if I turn off the internet, which kinda misses the point.

~o~

If live gives you lemons, make orange juice. Let the rest of the world wonder how the #$%# you managed it.

Si la vida te da limones, has jugo de naranja y deja que el resto del mundo se pregunte cómo carajos lo lograste.

Three and a half hours is pretty good regardless. :)

As suggested, the more you turn off/down, the better you'll be.

Another option is to get an another battery and use your existing one for extended use...

Actually, that's not bad battery life. The life of the battery depends on how often it's been charged (and run down COMPLETELY, not just a partial discharge) and how big the battery is to begin with. I have a 9-cell battery, which is huge and lasts up to 7 hours on a full charge. It is, however, a year and a half old and gets a max of 2 hours now, so I'm replacing it.

I think you're doing good to get that kind of time out of a three-year-old laptop.

"The act of writing is an act of optimism. You would not take the trouble to do it if you felt it didn't matter." Edward Albee
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I would say around 2 hours on something old. Though the new Macbooks get around 7 which is sick!

I have a Macbook Pro that I got the day before Nanowrimo and yes, mine does last around 7 and a half hours. It's awesome for days like today where I wrote everywhere through the library to the park. It was my day of around the town writing. Ha ha.

Thanks, everyone, for the information. Even though my laptop is about 3 years old, the battery has not been used much at all. It's not a small performance computer, it's a big one. So, I'm happy to know the battery time is about right, and if I want to have much longer, I'll need to pay attention to that feature for my next laptop. Thanks!

One other thing to think about: if you have the ability, completely re-installing the operating system would help to speed things up. If you can, it would uninstall all of the programs you've installed previously, but it would also clear out all sorts of junk and have it running like it was brand-spankin'-new (aside from the age of the battery, remember).

If you do decide to try it, MAKE SURE you've backed everything you want to keep. Could also be the saddest day of your virtual life (but the computer should run like a dream).

Another thing to be aware of is over charging the battery. If you're still using the laptop when you've finished recharging the battery, don't leave it plugged in. If the battery is full and you're not going to be moving any time soon, take the battery out and run purely off the cable.
It's also 'suggested' that you not use the laptop during charging.... but stuff that!! :P

2008: Of Cats and Stargates - Fail by 2000 words (still not finished lol)
2009: Dragon Quest (working title)