You can see a link to this “10 Battery Maximization Tips” everywhere, and i believe most of you are saying “Hey, we already know these, are you kiddin’ ?”. Yes, i know them too, but if you don’t, fly over there.
Brightness: how low can you go? Without any question, the fastest way to suck the life out of a battery is leaving your brightness high. Turn it down as low as you possibly can without needing to up your glasses prescription. On my Vaio, I can select from one of 8 levels. During one test, at brightness level 3 my system reported 60% full, with 3:52 (all times are hours:minutes) of life to go. I switched up to level 5 and in 17 minutes of use, I was down to 52% full, with 3:06 to go. In other words, 17 minutes used 46 minutes worth of battery (all other variables were held constant). You can even be so bold as to lower your brightness all the way down when sitting idle for a minute or two (for example, if you are writing a long blog post and pause to clarify your thoughts before typing).
