Dell Inspiron 15R Battery Saving Tips

The new Dell Inspiron 15r comes with a couple of power management schemes and one of them that sets by default is the Balanced power plan. Additionally there is a High Performance and Power Saver option available.

In "Balanced" power plan, the Dell Laptop system will prioritize both battery life and system performance. It is yet the best setup for working on your laptop.

In "Power Saver" the system adjusts with a low screen brightness as well as reducing some other system performance such as energy saving, reducing CPU and GPU usage. This gives you the long lasting battery backup -yet a reduced performance from your Dell Inspiron 15r.

In "High Performance" every resource is being used as well as a bright screen resolution, giving you the maximum juice and hardware acceleration from your Dell laptop. This one is good for running complex programs, watching HD videos or playing games.

By clicking on the battery icon from your windows 7 taskbar you can access 2 of the power plans. For the High Performance option you have to go to the control panel.

Bellow I will list some of the features of Dell Inspiron laptop that consumes the most part of your computer battery

Every laptop has one isn't it? Unless you are using an external screen to work on your laptop. Now the biggest LCD screens will eat up the most energy from your laptop. It's obvious, a 13 inch screen will take less energy than the 17 inch screen -it's that damn simple!

When working: depending on your light sources + your eye, you can adjust the screen brightness. The brightness keys are located on F4-F5 keys of Dell Inspiron 15r. Try to set a low screen brightness to use less energy from your laptop. Again make sure you are comfortable with the brightness settings and you can easily read/view the screen. Dell will automatically put your screen on dim and will turn it off when you are not active for a given time.

Dell inspiron 15r comes with built in bluetooth option and by default it stays on -all the time. Now even if you are not using, keeping the bluetooth ON everytime will eat a portion of your laptop charge. If you are not using any bluetooth devices, then you should turn the adepter off.

It's better not to use any regular device with bluetooth, such as use USB mice, cable headphones instead of the bluetooth ones. They are less expensive and will save battery power. Only make exceptions for your mobile phone or mp3 player for a quick transfer.

Hard disks and optical drives such as CD, DVD's are rotation media type because they spin using a motor. When you are browsing your computer, copy-pasting files, watching videos -you are spinning the motor.

Actually hard disk drives aren't the eat your battery types; the optical drives are! When you use your drive such as listening to music or burning a DVD, it will take a lot more energy from your dell laptop. To save your laptop energy when you are running on your battery, I suggest you not to use the optical drives.

Games and High Definition videos take exclusive resources from the CPU and GPU. Then the CPU and GPU takes exclusive battery power to run the applications.

HD videos takes a lot more battery power to run comparing to games. Because with HD video you are enabling another feature of dell inspiron laptop: the high definition audio and speakers. Putting your speakers on the top volume will consume your battery faster as well as reduce the life of your built in speakers.

If you are doing emails, web surfing and nothing else, that means you are saving a way lot of energy. Because in web surfing your computer is only using your screen, internet protocol and small portions of CPU and Hard Disks. On the other hand video conference, skype calls or screen recording apps eat up energy.

Watching a video or playing games means you are using your computer hard drive, CPU, GPU, Speakers etc. Thus you are using energy. Dell inspiron 15r comes with smart energy saving intel core processors and it makes the machine ideal for multi tasking. I work with opening 10s of programs, browser with 20s or windows open while listening to music and keeping skype on. I found multi tasking does eat up the battery but slowly.

I didn't knew it before but using multiple USB devices eat up the power as well as reduces individual USB device performance. Dell inspiron 15r comes with 4 (yes you heard it) four USB ports. One of them is an eSata combo USB port.

Now if you are using an USB mouse, keyboard -it will take very low energy from your computer. But if you add more things to it, such as USB light, USB fan, USB optical or hard disk, this means you are giving away precious charge though the USB ports.

I work on my Dell laptop and keep it plugged in all the time while I work. Now its a good thing because I'm using the AC power to run the computer. But keeping your computer plugged in all the time may have some drawbacks. Some people have issues with over heating on dell laptops. I found that dell heats while in charging + running or while running on battery.

It's good to turn your computer off + unplug it from any outlet once a day. Such as when you are going to sleep. If you want to keep your work on your pc, you can still hibernate the laptop. Hibernate means shutting down a computer with saving all the windows and programs.

If you are like me, you must put your computer on sleep when not working and putting it on hibernate at the end of the day. In this case, do restart your computer once a week, use disk clean up and de-fragment your hard drives for long life of your laptop.

In shut down: you close all of your programs, windows, docs and turn off your computer. In hibernation: your work is being saved before shutting your computer down.

As I been a great fan of "HIBERNATE" -it has a draw back. Closely monitoring, I found that hibernating impacts the capability of the battery charging process. While hibernating and getting back to previous state, the battery charges quickly and reduces the backup time by 1:30 minutes! That's deep! I mean in general when I go on battery, it shows 2:30+ mins, but when in the hibernation thing, it shows 1:15mins or less.

I believe the issue here is temporary but it may have a long lasting impact on the battery. So my suggestion is to put your pc on sleep when you are taking a break and have a full system shut down when you are finish working (or at the end of the day)

~Keep "HIBERNATE" option as a last resort when you will need to shut down + save your work :)

A laptop is a wonder! And it has cost a good money from your pocket when buying. By proper use and energy saving we can make sure it performs well for as long as it can. Please do share any experience with your laptop or if you have any other additional power saving tips that I have missed out, thanks.