Among the foremost concerns expressed by consumers while purchasing a new laptop computer, is the latter’s battery life. While Toshiba laptop manufacturers stake extravagant claims of battery life on their latest models, in reality, these figures hardly seem to match up. There is Toshiba Tech Support available to educate and enable users to get the best performance out of their laptop batteries.
In order to improve battery performance, it is important to understand how a battery works and how its charge is drained. A battery stores energy by charging its’ positive and negative terminals to a specific voltage level, when connected to an AC power source. When a laptop is off the power supply, its’ battery kicks into action and powers the circuits. Meanwhile, the battery slowly gets drained of its’ charge.
A Lithium (Li) ion battery is the standard battery being used by most laptop manufacturers today, due to several factors.
Li-ion batteries are lightweight compared to older battery materials and can hold their charge for longer duration, which translates to lighter laptops with a longer battery runtime. Additionally, they are not plagued by the ‘Memory effect’ observed in other battery materials consequently they do not need to be discharged completely before the next recharge. All Toshiba laptops use Li-ion batteries.
For a newly purchased Toshiba laptop, it is required to charge the battery for a specific number of hours before the laptop is turned on. Detailed instructions are available on Toshiba technical support Website and the user instruction manual that comes with the purchase.
While it is not advisable to discharge the laptop battery completely as doing so can ruin the battery.
It is also important not to keep the Toshiba laptop plugged to an AC power source for extended periods of time beyond that required to charge the battery. In other words, once the laptop is fully or almost fully charged, user should disconnect it from the power source.
Besides battery charging and discharging cycles, battery runtime also depends on the type of programs run by the system and laptop performance settings. Energy intensive programs such as video players, games and Adobe Photoshop, as well as, active Wi-Fi connections drain the battery quickly. With Wi-Fi connections, greater traffic implies faster battery usage. This is because the data is sent in packets to each Wi-Fi device and not as a continuous transfer. The time interval between every packet transfer drains the battery. Certain software programs make it possible to optimize Wi-Fi connectivity thereby, reducing power consumption during intervals when data is not being transferred on the laptop.
System settings on a Toshiba laptop also affect battery runtime. Altering these settings to suit user needs can improve battery runtime by a huge margin. Toshiba technical support services available online can help fine-tune laptop settings for optimal performance.
To make the most of a Toshiba laptop, it is important to regularly charge and discharge the battery and continually manage laptop settings depending on where and what it is being used for.
