Most laptops don’t last too long once you unplug them from the mains. Some don’t even have removable batteries, so swapping the empty one out for a fully charged spare isn’t an option.

Here, we share our top tips for squeezing those extra minutes out of your battery. A lot of the tips are similar to those for improving smartphone battery life and no wonder: at their hearts, laptops and smartphones use a lot of the same technologies.

Whether you own a Windows laptop or are running a different operating system, follow these general tips and your laptop will last longer between charges.

1. Dim the screen

By far the biggest power drain on most laptops is the screen. Or, to be more specific, the screen’s backlight. This is what enables you to see the colours on an LCD screen, and some laptops have power-sapping fluorescent backlights. More modern notebooks have LED backlights, but even these use a fair amount of juice.

Simply reducing the screen brightness can add 30 minutes or more to your battery life. If your laptop allows it, use the keys or buttons near the keyboard to adjust the brightness. Typically, you’ll hold the Fn key and press one of the function keys in the top row, or one of the cursor keys labelled with a sun symbol.

If not, hold the Windows key and press X. This will open up the Mobility Center where you can change the brightness.

2. Change the power settings

By default, your laptop might be set to Windows’ ‘Balanced’ setting rather than Power Saver. In the Control Panel search for Power Options and check which Power Plan is selected. Don't forget that Windows uses different power and performance settings depending on whether it is running on mains or battery power.

In general terms, what you’re looking to do is ensure that the operating system does its utmost to save power where possible. This means turning the screen off after a short period of inactivity, such as when you’re making a coffee, and turning off the hard drive or even going to sleep if nothing appears to be happening.

If you delve into the advanced power settings, you can tweak things to your liking, setting when the system hibernates and which components should use their maximum power saving profiles (including, on some laptops, the graphics card and Wi-Fi adapter).

3. Disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

If you’re not using them, disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Both radios can use a fair amount of power, so it makes sense to turn them off when you’re on battery power. Most laptops have a switch or key combination to disable Wi-Fi, but Bluetooth can be trickier.

Some manufacturers provide a utility (often obvious in the Start menu) for enabling or disabling Bluetooth, but if in doubt, you can head to the Device Manager in the Control Panel, scroll through the list of hardware until you find the Bluetooth adaptor, right-click on it and choose Disable. (Double-clicking on it when disabled should enable it again.)

4. Don’t leave your laptop on permanent charge

Lithium-ion batteries are relatively clever in that they can’t be overcharged, but it’s not good for the long-term health of your battery to leave your laptop always plugged in to the mains. Some manufacturers (including Sony and Lenovo) provide a utility which limits the battery from fully charging.

This helps to prevent battery degradation and means you can leave the laptop always connected to the mains. When you want to use your laptop on battery power and get maximum battery life, disable the limiter and allow the laptop to charge to 100 percent.

5. Remove unnecessary peripherals

Leaving a disc in your DVD drive is a sure way to reduce battery life, as it might spin up whenever you launch a Windows Explorer window or access the Save dialog in an application.

Any USB accessories you leave connected, such as portable hard disks or USB web cams will also draw power, so disconnect them if they’re not needed.

6. Get a second battery

We mentioned this at the start, but why not invest in a spare battery? They’re available for many laptops, and you might even find that your laptop can accept a higher-capacity than was supplied originally. Say your battery is a ‘six-cell’ unit. Swapping this for a ‘nine-cell’ should give a third extra running time.

Other laptops (we’ve known Dell offer this) allow you to remove the DVD drive and install a second battery in its place.

Alternatively, buy a universal laptop battery that comes with a variety of ‘tips’ to suit just about any laptop. You simply charge it up, choose the appropriate tip and connect it to your laptop’s power socket when the internal battery runs low. The external battery charges the internal battery or, if you remove the internal battery, powers the laptop directly.

7. Buy a new battery

Contrary to popular belief, laptop batteries are consumables – like printer ink. Batteries aren’t designed to last the lifetime of the laptop, and that’s why – if you check the small print on the warranty statement – you’ll probably find that the battery isn’t covered, or is guaranteed for a shorter period than the laptop.

Over time, batteries degrade and after several years of hard use, you’ll probably find the battery only has 50 percent of its original capacity and lasts only half the time.

While some laptops don’t have user-replaceable batteries, most do and you can buy third-party replacements for considerably less than the cost of the equivalent from your laptop manufacturer.

8. Upgrade to an SSD

Mechanical hard disks, which are still common in laptops, require a fair few watts to spin their platters. A solid-state drive, on the other hand, uses less power as it has no moving parts.

Although you won’t see a huge improvement in battery life from this upgrade, it will have the extra benefit of making your laptop an awful lot quicker.

See our guide: How to install an SSD in your laptop

9. Switch to internal graphics

If your laptop has an AMD or Nvidia graphics chip, there’s a good chance it will also have integrated graphics (usually Intel). In theory, it should be set up so the powerful graphics chip is only used when playing games or running demanding applications, but you should check whether this is the case.

As with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, manufacturers sometimes offer a utility to manually switch between graphics chips. You may have to reboot, but most modern designs allow you to switch on the fly.

We’ve seen such laptops last twice as long on battery power when the integrated graphics chips is used instead of the Nvidia or AMD chip.

10. Manage your memory

If you’re the sort who has 10 or even 20 tabs open in your web browser, you’ll benefit from longer battery life by culling those tabs. The same goes for running lots of applications at the same time.

When you run lots of programs, or have lots of photos open in an editor, you’ll use up all the free system memory. Anything extra has to be ‘paged’ to the hard disk, which as we’ve said, is a mechanical device in many laptops.

This not only slows your computer down but also increases battery life. One quick fix is to install more memory in your laptop, but keeping the bare minimum of programs and tabs open is another way.