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Lunar Lake is Intel’s Snapdragon killer. Intel’s Core Ultra Series 2 (Lunar Lake) was specifically designed to emphasize low power, but with competitive performance. In this it somewhat succeeds, though the Core Ultra 7 258V chip I tested can still run a distant second, or third, behind AMD’s mobile Ryzen processors. But Lunar Lake also provides incredibly good, Snapdragon-like battery life with a powerful, embedded GPU capable of playing yesterday’s top-tier games. Intel supplied us with a Lunar Lake-powered Asus ZenBook S14 laptop for review, and we’ve spent the last week or so testing it to answer the question: Of the AMD Ryzen AI 300, Intel’s Lunar Lake, and the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite, which is the best laptop processor so far in 2024? And how does Lunar Lake compare to its predecessor, Meteor Lake? We’ve run all three chips through a number of benchmarks — with separate tests run while plugged in and on battery power. We think it’s important that you know the maximum performance potential of these laptop processors as well as how much performance is lost to keep your laptop up and running when unplugged. Intel launched Lunar Lake at the Computex 2024 show in Taiwan, where executives promised a “no-compromise experience.” The Asus ZenBook S14 and other Lunar Lake and Ryzen AI 300 laptops now qualify as Copilot+ PCs, even though a Windows update to enable their AI features won’t occur until October. Adam Patrick Murray / IDG Adam Patrick Murray / IDG Adam Patrick Murray / IDG How we tested Intel’s Lunar Lake This review uses benchmarks compiled by myself, my colleague Gordon Mah Ung, and other PCWorld laptop reviewers over current and previous testing. I’ll focus on the three key chips of this generation: Intel’s Core Ultra Series 2/Lunar Lake, the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite, and the AMD Ryzen AI 300, occasionally adding some older processors for additional context, such as a Core Ultra Series 1/Meteor Lake processor. I’ll try to explain what each test covers, why it matters, and how test performance will reflect on the next laptop you buy. If you want even more depth, Gordon will have his own Lunar Lake video that pits Snapdragon against Lunar Lake in a head-to-head battle. The laptop that Intel and Asus supplied includes a Core Ultra 7 258V. That’s about midway down the stack of the Core Ultra Series 2 chips Intel launched, and it’s a little unusual in that Intel isn’t handing us its top-of-the-line chip for comparison testing. Instead, the Ultra 7 258V includes four performance cores, four low-power efficiency cores, and a 4.8GHz turbo clock available when needed. All told, just eight threads are available for processing. The nice thing is that Intel and Asus have consistently used similar laptop models for comparison between chip generations, specifically the Asus ZenBook 14 OLED, which is home to both the Lunar Lake and previous-gen Meteor Lake Core Ultra processors below. AMD used the Asus Zenbook S 16 as a debut platform for the Ryzen AI 300. On the Qualcomm side, though I reviewed the Microsoft Surface Pro 11th Edition, I commandeered the Surface Laptop 7th Edition Gordon tested and ran some additional benchmarks. It’s a fairer comparison for Qualcomm. In certain benchmarks, because of logistics, I used an MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo with an identical Meteor Lake chip inside. Lunar Lake tested: CPU performance I tested all of our test devices with two synthetic benchmarks: Cinebench R23 and Cinebench 2024. Both push the laptop’s CPU to its limits, first using every processing thread available and alternatively with just a single thread. The difference between R23 and and Cinebench 2024 is that the latter has a specialized Arm version, while the R23 version is run via the Snapdragon’s emulator software that translates X86 instructions into Arm code. Two things stand out here: When you code for Arm, Snapdragon’s performance improves significantly, propelling it to the top of the heap. That pushes Lunar Lake (the Ultra 7 258V) down the rankings. But you’ll also note that Intel’s older Meteor Lake (the 155H) outperforms its latest chip. What this tells me is that Intel is prioritizing battery life, not performance. According to our sister site, Macworld, the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air 15, both using Apple’s M3 chip, reported multithreaded scores of 693 and 658, respectively. In single-core performance, they reported a score of 141 for both platforms. So yes, Intel’s Lunar Lake is faster, but not in single-core performance. Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG One note: I test using the default performance settings that laptop makers provide, as that feels realistic. That means that the Snapdragon tests were performed at Microsoft’s “Recommended” settings (the lowest) while Lunar Lake’s tests were performed at the “Balanced,” or middle settings. However, I also test chips in performance mode; in this case, using the Windows settings for maximum performance and adjusting the Asus laptop settings to its performance settings, too. Occasionally you’ll see battery performance scores that outperform wall power; that can be due to statistical anomalies, but it can also just happen. We’ve seen this in our Snapdragon and Meteor Lake testing, too. If you’d like Snapdragon’s performance settings for comparison, my Surface Pro (11th Edition) review includes those. (I don’t test “Max” settings on battery.) I’m not a huge fan of the Geekbench suite, only because it runs in the background without demonstrating what it does as a real workload. But it’s a popular test, as it’s quick to run. It too has a dedicated Arm version, which propels the Surface Laptop 7th Edition to the top. I’ve organized the results hierarchically by the “everything goes” multithreaded CPU test, placing the powered test directly over the test running on battery for comparison’s sake. One of Snapdragon’s strengths is how uniformly it runs, whether on battery or on wall power. Geekbench again shows how sharply Lunar Lake’s performance drops on battery…but also hints at something we’ll get to later: the excellent performance that its integrated GPU delivers. The other story is simply how well AMD’s Ryzen continues to deliver top-tier performance. Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG Another choice I made was to use Procyon’s Office Productivity benchmark for this round of testing. I prefer PCMark 10’s broad suite of apps (from office to CAD to simulated video calls) but Arm processors won’t consistently run all of the tests. These office benchmark tests are still legitimate, demonstrating how well the laptop chips work within Microsoft Office, including Outlook, using the real-world apps themselves. Fortunately, or not, there’s not much difference between the various platforms. But again, look at that drop-off on the Core Ultra/Lunar Lake 258V when you run it on battery! Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG This becomes a real issue in certain situations. One of the realities of working on the road is that you rarely “work” constantly: You browse to a web page, pause while you read it, author an email, take a sip of coffee, check your phone… your laptop is often sitting idle. But when you actually ask it to execute an application, the latest generation of mobile processors can have a hard time keeping up. In our recent tests of the AMD Ryzen AI 300, we adjusted our Handbrake test to make it more intensive. Handbrake transcodes a video — in this case, the open-source film Tears of Steel — and it’s a computationally intensive process. How well the laptop cools itself plays a role here, but so does the battery: This test can take close to an hour to perform, and even a robust battery can give out. I couldn’t loop three of these tests together before the battery expired, which is about three hours of constant work. Again, though, Intel’s latest and greatest…finishes last. This is a real-world application that you can download yourself, so it’s a meaningful test. It took Lunar Lake nearly 17 minutes more than the Ryzen to complete the task. Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG Lunar Lake tested: Graphics and AI performance So far, Intel’s Lunar Lake hasn’t been that impressive compared to the competition. But we now turn to the integrated GPU, and the new Xe2 graphics engine that Intel says will debut in a second discrete GPU, code-named Battlemage, later. Given AMD’s historical strength in GPUs, Intel’s resurgence is a bit surprising. But in two tests — Time Spy, an older benchmark geared toward desktop and mobile gaming, and its replacement, Steel Nomad Light — Intel’s Lunar Lake shines. Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG Can you edit photos on the go? Puget Systems, a workstation developer, authors its own benchmarks to try to answer that question. The test uses a scripted benchmark to apply various filters and adjustments to images opened within Adobe Photoshop, and then generates a score. Here, all three mobile platforms are bunched closely together, which probably indicates that all three are okay for this task…but not on battery. Here’s some additional context: According to the PugetBench site, an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D desktop system with a GeForce RTX 3080 generates a score of 9,959. A massive MSI Raider notebook with an Intel Core i9-14900HX and GeForce RTX 4090 laptop GPU generates a score of 9,959. And an Intel Core i7-9750H desktop paired with a GeForce GTX 1660 Ti produces a score of 4,549. Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG We normally don’t run gaming benchmarks on top of what are usually considered to be productivity machines. But in this case Intel has been telling us that, yes, these machines are good enough for light gaming, especially on Low graphics settings. That’s good enough for us. Typically, 60 frames per second is considered the minimum for gameplay — any less, and the game can stutter. In this case, we tried out Shadow of the Tomb Raider, run at 1080p and Low settings. Any you know what? It looks and runs pretty dang well. All of our gaming tests were performed on wall power. Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG After its disastrous (?) launch, Cyberpunk: 2077 has surged back to become one of the more playable games on PCs. And in this case, it runs pretty well on Lunar Lake. However, AMD’s Ryzen still outpaces it. Again, these tests were run at 1080p, at Low settings. Frame generation was turned on for the Ryzen processor; that’s not offered for the other two chips. Instead, Cyberpunk offers XeSS resolution scaling, which, combined with dialing up the Windows and laptop settings to performance mode, allows for a playable frame rate of about 65fps, though I saw 69fps on a cold run at the beginning of the day. Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG Finally, we move to AI. AI has become one of the hottest topics in computing, although developers still haven’t flooded the market with AI applications that run locally on the PC. (Windows 11’s upcoming 24H2 update should have more, including generative art for Paint and Photos, and eventually Windows Recall.) For now, there aren’t too many benchmarks that tap the TOPS that these new platforms integrate. Remember, Intel’s Lunar Lake, AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 (up to 50 TOPS), and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chips (45 TOPS) are all Copilot+ PC-qualified, even if they won’t receive their new feature set without a Microsoft update. Intel’s Lunar Lake chips provide a varying amount of TOPS; in this case, the Core Ultra 258V provides 47 TOPS. UL’s Procyon app measures the AI output by testing each chip for how well it executes various AI frameworks. Like the Cinebench or 3DMark tests, the idea is that you’re getting a generic picture of how well the chips will perform AI functions. Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG While I don’t have a Procyon result for the AMD Ryzen chip, the test shows that both Lunar Lake and the Snapdragon X Elite are pretty evenly matched; Intel’s chip does better with AI on wall power, but Qualcomm is the superior AI chip on the go. Procyon also offers a more practical test: generative AI image generation, which uses AI to generate a series of eight images. (This test doesn’t yet run on an Arm processor.) I ran two tests, just to indicate the practical power of the NPU. First I used the test to create a series of eight images using just the NPU, and then I ran the same test with a toggle that allowed me to use the integrated GPU as an assist. It’s this “total TOPS” that companies like Intel are espousing as the future of AI, though one that really isn’t here yet, either. The test uses an 8-bit integer model, which generates less complex images than a floating-point model. But they’re quick: about 8 seconds per image when the NPU and iGPU are combined. Here, I compare the Procyon scores. Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG Lunar Lake tested: Battery-life performance It’s easy to measure the battery life of a laptop. For a chip? Well, that’s a lot messier. How long your laptop will last depends a lot on the size of the battery and how big and how efficient your laptop’s screen is. The type of screen (IPS, OLED) also makes a difference. I think the best way to answer this particular question is to refer you to my colleague Gordon Mah Ung’s forthcoming video, in which he takes two virtually identical Dell laptops — one with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chip inside, the other with an Intel Core Ultra Series 2 / Lunar Lake chip — and does a direct comparison. That’s about as good as you’re going to get in answering which chip is most efficient. We do have previous test results of the Asus ZenBook S 16 (with a Ryzen AI 300 chip inside and a 78Wh battery), the 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7th Edition (with a Snapdragon X Elite chip and a 54Wh battery), the Asus ZenBook 14 OLED (with a first-gen Core Ultra Core 155H and a 75Wh battery) versus the current Asus ZenBook OLED (with its Lunar Lake chip and a 73Wh battery). Running these laptops on our standard video rundown test, where we loop a 4K video over and over at a fixed screen brightness until the laptop’s battery expires, is kind of ludicrous these days. The Lunar Lake laptop lasted 21 hours!! That’s basically like taking a laptop on a weekend “camping” trip or a prolonged sales conference. It makes more sense to ask it to do a little work to simulate a work environment. UL’s Procyon battery-life test moves from Office app to Office app, performing “tasks” in each to simulate you working on your laptop for hours on end. In this case, here’s how it worked out. Remember, Meteor Lake, Lunar Lake, and the Ryzen AI tests were run in “balanced” mode, while the Snapdragon X Elite was left in its “recommended” low-power mode. As they say, your mileage will vary…but at least 10 hours of computing power from all three competitors? That’s fantastic. Intel Lunar Lake: 17 hours, 7 minutes Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite: 16 hours, 20 minutes AMD Ryzen AI 300: 10 hours, 42 minutes Intel Meteor Lake: 10 hours, 35 minutes Conclusion: Which laptop chip is better? Old chip nerds will recall Transmeta, a laptop processor startup that could translate its instruction set from X86, much like Arm. Transmeta’s legacy isn’t so much what it accomplished, but what it drove Intel to do: finally zero in on the laptop market and develop a competitive laptop processor during the first years of the new century. Now, it’s happened again. Intel’s first Core Ultra, Meteor Lake, downplayed performance for long battery life; Lunar Lake takes that to the next level. So is Intel’s Lunar Lake a Snapdragon killer? Not exactly. In terms of efficiency, there’s a strong case to be made that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite is still the most efficient processor out there. AMD’s Ryzen chips win at many performance tasks, but battery life suffers. But in some sense, that doesn’t matter. Dumping in a few extra grams of battery essentially “eliminates” Qualcomm’s advantage, as our test Asus laptop demonstrates. But the Snapdragon still outperforms it under several scenarios, save for gaming. There, lingering compatibility issues associated with the Arm instruction set and the impressive 3D engine give the Core Ultra Series 2 a solid advantage. All apps just work on Intel and AMD machines, but can be hit or miss on Snapdragon laptops, though Qualcomm has managed to get many of the most popular apps running on Arm. The bottom line is that for any task that depends on the CPU, Intel’s Lunar Lake is middling at best. When the GPU or NPU enters the equation, it surges higher. Ditto for battery life, where it competes well against the Snapdragon. (At a certain point, do people stop worrying about battery life, or does long battery life equal a longer-life notebook?) A few years back it was easier to identify the “best” laptop chip. Now, the question is what’s best for you. And it’s not completely answerable, either: With Arrow Lake lurking in the background, Intel could have a separate performance processor up its sleeve. For Intel, this is a simple sell: Lunar Lake is a safe bet, a Snapdragon without the compatibility concerns. Read...

As a long-time Windows geek, I’ve always loved and relied on keyboard shortcuts. They’re incredible! Like a collection of secret handshakes that can quickly perform useful tasks and dramatically speed up whatever you’re doing on your computer. Get Windows 11 Pro for cheap Windows 11 Pro And yes, keyboard shortcuts are rather secret. Windows doesn’t provide a coach that guides you through the hundreds of keyboard shortcuts you might find handy. They’re just… there. In the background. So, you usually have to seek them out or find out about them the old-fashioned way: by talking with other PC geeks and reading helpful articles like this one. Let me show you the greatest and most practical keyboard shortcuts I actually use all the time. 1. Launch File Explorer If you’re like me, you use File Explorer a lot. With a keyboard shortcut, it’s always close at hand — simply press Windows key + E to launch a new File Explorer window whenever you need one. Related: Useful File Explorer tips to keep under your belt 2. Go straight to Task Manager You probably know the basic Ctrl + Alt + Delete keyboard shortcut, but if you’re using it to open Task Manager, there’s actually a better way: instead, use the Ctrl + Shift + Esc keyboard shortcut. Related: How to access the old Task Manager in Windows 11 3. Open the Settings app Want to change a setting in the operating system? You usually have to do it through the Settings app. Instead of searching the Start menu, there’s actually a keyboard shortcut you can use: Windows key + I. Then, you can search directly in the Settings app for what you need. 4. Dig through clipboard history Chris Hoffman / IDG Chris Hoffman / IDG Chris Hoffman / IDG Did you know that every time you copy an image or text to the clipboard, Windows keeps a running history of it all? The usual Ctrl + V keyboard shortcut only pastes the last thing you copied — but if you want to paste something you copied much earlier, you can! All you have to do is pull up the clipboard history with the Windows key + V keyboard shortcut. (If you’ve never opened it before, you’ll be prompted for permission to activate the feature.) What’s nice about the clipboard history is that you can even pin certain copied items to the panel, making them quick to find in the future. Related: Obscure Windows features everyone should know about 5. Insert emojis anywhere Chris Hoffman / IDG Chris Hoffman / IDG Chris Hoffman / IDG Love ’em or hate ’em, emojis have become part of modern communication — and Microsoft knows this, which is why Windows makes it easy to input emojis in nearly any application. All you have to do is press the Windows key + Period or Windows key + Semicolon keyboard shortcuts. Then, use the search field to find the emoji you want (or just scroll through to browse). 6. Type with your voice Chris Hoffman / IDG Chris Hoffman / IDG Chris Hoffman / IDG Windows lets you input text with your voice in nearly any application. To pull up the voice typing interface, just press Windows key + H. You’ll see a floating window (on Windows 11) or a bar (on Windows 10). This feature is called Voice Typing. You can use the settings menu in the window/bar to activate features like automatic punctuation. (By default, you’ll have to speak words like “period” while you dictate text.) Related: I wrote this article using Windows voice typing 7. Discover the power user menu When Microsoft got rid of the Start menu in Windows 8, they at least had the courtesy to throw a bone to power users: a hidden “power user menu” with quick access to various system settings. And even though Windows 10 brought back the Start menu — which persists into Windows 11 — the power user menu never went away. To open it, press Windows key + X (or right-click the Start button). 8. Lock your computer To protect your computer from unauthorized access — especially in an environment like an office or campus — you should lock your computer whenever you step away. To quickly lock your PC, simply press the Windows key + L keyboard shortcut. 9. Control sound settings Chris Hoffman / IDG Chris Hoffman / IDG Chris Hoffman / IDG If you have multiple sound output devices (e.g., speakers, headphones, wireless earbuds) or multiple sound input devices (e.g., laptop microphone, headset, external microphone), you probably switch between them a lot. Well, you don’t have to dig deep into the Settings app to change between them. You can actually just press the Ctrl + Windows key + V keyboard shortcut to pull up the sound settings menu. It’s also a shortcut to adjusting system volume and per-app volume (using the sliders) and a quick way to pop into the Sound section of the Settings app (by clicking More volume settings). This feature is new to Windows 11, so isn’t available on Windows 10. 10. Snap windows The Snap feature is an essential window management tool for multitasking on Windows 11. You can easily “snap” app windows to edges of the screen using your keyboard. For starters, use Windows key + Left arrow and Windows key + Right arrow to snap the currently focused window to either the left half or right half of the screen. Similarly, use Windows key + Alt + Up arrow and Windows key + Alt + Down arrow to snap windows to the top half or bottom half of the screen, respectively. You can also use shortcuts to move windows to quadrants of the screen. For example, after snapping a window to the left half (using the above keyboard shortcut), keep holding the Windows key and tap the Up arrow to snap it to the top-left quadrant. 11. Activate Snap Layouts Chris Hoffman / IDG Chris Hoffman / IDG Chris Hoffman / IDG As if Snapping itself wasn’t useful enough, Windows 11 also has an additional Snap Layouts feature that makes it easier to snap windows into various configurations. To activate Snap Layouts, use the Windows key + Z keyboard shortcut. You’ll get a pop-up with numbered options — simply press the associated number key to choose that window layout. You can also see Snap Layouts by hovering your mouse pointer over the Maximize button of a window. Or, drag any window to the center-top edge of the screen to see Snap Layout options. Related: New Windows 11 features that make life easier 12. Toggle between windowed and full-screen modes in PC games Many PC games offer both windowed and full-screen modes. If you want to switch between them, it can be quite a hassle to navigate to the game’s settings menu, especially if you do it often. Here’s a faster way to switch between windowed and full-screen modes in many PC games: just press Alt + Enter. This doesn’t work in every game, but it does work in many of them. It’s the first thing I try whenever I want to switch between full-screen and windowed modes. 13. Jump between virtual desktops Windows 11 has a feature called Task View that lets you create “virtual desktops” that you can switch between. A virtual desktop is like a separate instance of “the” desktop, and each virtual desktop can hold its own set of running app windows. There are several keyboard shortcuts for the Task View experience, such as Windows key + Tab, which makes it easy to create new virtual desktops, delete existing ones, and jump between them. But once you’ve created a few virtual desktops, an even easier way to switch between them is to use the Windows key + Ctrl + Left arrow and Windows key + Ctrl + Right arrow keyboard shortcuts. Related: Master these Windows 11 productivity features 14. Move windows between monitors Do you have a sprawling workstation setup with multiple monitors? You can move windows from one screen to the next by pressing Windows key + Shift + Left arrow (to move the currently focused window to the left display) or Windows key + Shift + Right arrow (to move the currently focused window to the right display). 15. Open the classic File Explorer context menu right away On Windows 11, File Explorer has changed a lot from what it was before, particularly with a streamlined context menu. But some options are only found in that classic, old-school context menu. Rather than first opening the context menu and then selecting Show more options (or even hacking your registry with a workaround), you can actually just use a keyboard shortcut to quickly open the old context menu right away: hold down the Shift key while right-clicking in File Explorer to see the classic context menu. This feature is new to Windows 11, so isn’t available on Windows 10. 16. Edit text faster The Ctrl key is one of my favorite underutilized tricks when it comes to fast text editing. In short, holding down Ctrl makes most keys act on entire words rather than individual characters. For example, Backspace deletes the previous character, but Ctrl + Backspace deletes the previous word. Another example, Left and Right arrows move the cursor by one character, but Ctrl + Left arrow and Ctrl + Right arrow moves the cursor from word to word. And it works with the Shift key, too. By holding Shift, you can highlight text as the cursor moves — so, if you want to quickly highlight multiple words in a row, just hold Ctrl + Shift and then tap the Left and Right arrows. (Try holding Shift with the Home and End keys to highlight entire lines of text with just a few keystrokes!) 17. Reopen a closed browser tab All the modern web browsers — including Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Edge — let you quickly reopen tabs that you’ve closed. It’s easy to remember, too: if the Ctrl + T keyboard shortcut creates a new tab, the Ctrl + Shift + T keyboard shortcut reopens the last closed tab. 18. Alt + Tab in reverse Alt + Tab is one of the most iconic Windows keyboard shortcuts. But, if you have a lot of open windows to cycle through, it may make more sense to cycle in reverse sometimes. In that case, just press Shift + Alt + Tab to go backwards through the list of open windows. And that’s not all: while the Alt + Tab dialog is open, you can also use the arrow keys to instantly jump to the selected thumbnail’s window. 19. Rename files quickly Want to quickly rename a file? With a file selected in File Explorer, just press F2, type the name, and press Enter. I like to navigate between files using the arrow keys, then use the F2 key to quickly rename them. Or better yet: after pressing F2 and typing a file name, press the Tab key (instead of the Enter key) to immediately start renaming the next file in the folder. 20. Save a screenshot as a file Chris Hoffman / IDG Chris Hoffman / IDG Chris Hoffman / IDG The built-in Windows screenshot tools have gotten better, but sometimes you want to skip the tools and immediately save as an image file. To save a screenshot to disk without all the intermediate steps, press Windows key + Print Screen. Your screen will flash as Windows saves the screenshot. After that, you’ll find the screenshot in the Screenshots folder inside your user account’s Pictures folder. Related: How to take smarter screenshots in Windows More Windows productivity tips Honestly, as useful as these keyboard shortcuts are, they’re only scratching the surface of what’s buried in Windows. I’m always hunting down useful tips and features to share with the readers of my free Windows Intelligence newsletter! Be sure to check out this unusually hidden shortcut that works in the Task Manager, too. It blew my mind last year. Even for a grizzled PC geek like myself, there’s always more to discover in Windows. Read...

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I’ll be the first one to admit to not practicing the best battery habits, especially where my laptop is concerned. Most days I leave my laptop plugged in for far too long, which can deteriorate the battery over time, especially if it’s fully charged. I’ll find myself cranking up the brightness as well, even when I’m just browsing social media and doing day-to-day tasks. That’s because I’m a mutant. Don’t be a mutant. That said, I’m willing to turn over a new leaf and start practicing better battery life habits — and if you’re anything like me, it’s not too late to change your ways either. Here are a few simple tweaks you can make to extend the life of your laptop. Further reading: Best laptops 2024: Premium, budget, gaming, 2-in-1s, and more Turn down the brightness Lowering the screen brightness is the easiest thing you can do to help preserve the battery inside your laptop, as it reduces the power usage. Unless you’re watching a movie in which dark scenes are prevalent, you probably don’t need the brightness set to 100 percent, especially if you’re just using the laptop for everyday activities like posting on social media or browsing the web. I’d recommend setting the brightness anywhere from 50 to 70 percent. The sweet spot will likely depend on your comfort level, the environment, and room brightness. Check out pcworld`s best battery life pick Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 Read our review Switch off keyboard backlighting Personally, I love the look of a keyboard backlight. Whether it’s an undulating rainbow of colors or a clean white hue against dark keys, I find it has a calming effect on me. However, it’s not a necessary feature and if you’re using a gaming laptop with adjustable backlighting, it might be negatively impacting the battery life. If you’ve set the backlighting to the highest level, you may want to scale things back or turn it off completely. IDG / Chris Hoffman IDG / Chris Hoffman IDG / Chris Hoffman Don’t keep the laptop plugged in all the time Keeping the laptop plugged in all the time, especially if you’re working with an older model, may be at risk of overcharging. Nowadays, laptops with lithium-ion batteries come with built-in software that stops it from overcharging. That means the laptop will stop charging or receiving energy when it reaches 100 percent. Although it’s more difficult to damage these types of batteries, it’s still not a great idea to keep the laptop plugged in. The biggest thing you need to worry about is overheating. Although the laptop will cease charging, it’s still drawing power, which may cause the hardware to overheat. So, keeping the laptop plugged in may reduce the battery capacity over a period of time. I’d recommend shutting down the laptop when it’s at full charge and unplugging it from the wall, especially if you’re powering down for the night. Further reading: Is it bad to leave your laptop always plugged in? Be mindful of heat and clean those vents Like most people, I like to curl up in bed with my laptop and spend hours watching brain-rotting content. Sure, it’s a favorite pastime of mine, but it’s destroying the battery life and I’ll tell you why. The thing is blankets and pillows can obstruct the fans and vents and prevent heat from escaping the laptop. If you insist on using your laptop in bed, I’d recommend investing in a lap desk, which shouldn’t block airflow. Laptops should be used on a firm surface that won’t flex and block the vents. You should also clean those vents once in a while, as dust buildup is another battery killer. You can blast away the dust buildup with a can of compressed air. It’s easy to do and also weirdly fun and satisfying. That said, please use the compressed air in short bursts and hold it about six to eight inches away from the machine. If you want to take it a step further, you can crack open the laptop and blast the compressed air at the fan blades. You can also use a toothbrush to scrub any gunk off. Thiago Trevisan/PCWorld Thiago Trevisan/PCWorld Thiago Trevisan/PCWorld Turn on Battery Saver mode Battery Saver mode, a feature you can enable on either Windows 11 or 10, is designed to help conserve the battery inside of your laptop. It does this by blocking certain apps from running in the background, lowering the brightness to 30 percent, and so on. By default, this feature will automatically turn on when the battery reaches 20 percent. That said, you can always go in and set the percentage to whatever you want. Note: This feature will only appear in the Settings menu if the laptop is unplugged. Windows 10 Select Start > Settings > System Scroll down and select Battery Toggle Battery Saver to the on position Select the desired percentage Windows 11 Select Start > Settings > System Scroll down and select Power & Battery Scroll down and select Battery Saver Toggle Battery Saver to the on position Select the desired percentage Close power-consuming apps Power-consuming apps like Spotify and Facebook will drain the battery at a faster rate, which is why it’s important to close them when you’re not actively using them. In fact, Windows laptops have a built-in feature that shows you which apps are hogging all of the power. Windows 10 Select Start > Settings > System > Battery Here you can see which apps are impacting the battery life. The Time Period section will show battery use from the last six hours, 24 hours, or last week. Windows 11 Select Start > Settings > System > Power & Battery Scroll down and click Battery Usage Here you’ll see a list of applications that have used the battery power. Turn on Airplane mode If you don’t need access to the internet, consider turning on the laptop’s Airplane mode. Not only is it a great way to save battery power, but it also reduces distractions. Below you’ll find step-by-step instructions on how to turn on Airplane mode in Windows 10 and Windows 11. It’s actually the same instructions for both. Windows 10, Windows 11 Select Start > Settings > Network & Internet > Airplane Mode Toggle the on or off switch Read...

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The discovery of poo and a detector dog’s excitement in Te Anau leads to an Environment Southland investigation. Read...

Limited troop numbers and the lack of arrests in trouble spots around the country has created an environment of public distrust towards law enforcement arms of government, writes Scott Waide. Read...

About 90 litres of black oil has been observed in the creek by Environment Canterbury staff. Read...