If you own a laptop, you have to use electrical power to charge it. But how many watts does a laptop use to charge to its fullest? And once fully charged, when do you need to charge it again in a day so that you can estimate the total watts used for charging your laptop to the fullest for once or for a whole day.
Several factors are involved in determining the use of watts for charging a laptop, such as the model of the laptop, its battery life, usage, brightness level, and size.
Although a laptop can vary in power consumption on an average scale, most laptops use 40 to 50 wat
ts to charge fully. However, some laptops can exceed a need of 60 to 80 watts for complete charging.
Laptop Battery Consumption
A laptop is charged for giving power to its battery for functioning, and the battery life drains slowly with the running of its hardware and software. Different software and hardware utilize a computer’s battery at certain levels to perform their function.
However, good quality and expensive laptops will inevitably have highly efficient components. But being highly or lowly efficient, they will consume power depending on the task they perform. These components include:
CPU
CPU uses the most power of the computer as it controls all other components. It turns on as soon as the laptop is powered on.
Although you cannot decrease the amount of power used by a CPU, a well-performing central processing unit will utilize less power and still operate well for the running of a laptop. In contrast, a low-quality CPU will consume more energy to operate at the same level.
Graphic cards
Moreover, Graphic cards are the operative components behind the display of your laptop. Graphic cards display everything you open and see on the screen.
So if you are surfing on the internet or going through documents, they will consume less power to operate than watching videos or playing games.
Also, the level of performance and quality of graphic cards determines how much battery they consume in a time period differently for both browsing or playing games and watching videos. Efficient graphic cards need less power to operate the display.
Adapter
Most importantly, the power supply to a laptop is controlled by the power of its adapter. An adapter with a high capacity to supply energy that is usually around 90 watts will consume more power and supply it to the laptop. On the other hand, a laptop with a low-capacity adapter will consume less electric power.
To supply a sufficient amount of power to the laptop, an adapter should be compatible with it and capable of consuming more power for a large size laptop.
Ram
The laptop’s RAM also uses some amount of power but not that much. Being the computer’s main memory, that is random access memory, and it vanishes when there is no power.
As it doesn’t affect the battery too much, RAM should be compatible with the computer for operating correctly.
Screen
The bigger the screen of a laptop is, the more power it consumes and decreases the battery faster. So if you own a large laptop that displays a big screen, it will use more battery.
However, the size of the screen and its brightness add to the usage of power, so decreasing the brightness can increase the battery life.
Hard disk
While functioning for storing data, a hard disk (or hard disk drive) uses a significant amount of energy. The more a hard drive operates and spins, the more watts of power it uses.
Furthermore, the operating capacity of a hard drive is measured in RPMs. Thus a hard drive with fewer revolutions per minute uses less energy to operate.
Types of Laptops and Watts They Use for the Battery
Many types of laptops offer features and components varying in quality and efficiency depending on the price range. These include
- Basic laptops, also known as notebooks, normally use 40 to 50 watts per hour.
- MacBook’s that are up to 16 inches in size use around 50 to 60 watts.
- Chromebooks take 20 to 30 watts to charge to their fullest.
Similarly, all other different types of laptops use more or fewer watts.
Power Consumption in Gaming laptops
A high-end laptop offers a gaming level requirement of battery life, as for gaming and professional laptops, more power is consumed.
So if you want to use the laptop for gaming or professional use, buy a high-end or any laptop with long battery life because gaming laptops exceed in power usage up to 150 to 180 watts.
Power Consumption in Entry-level laptops
Entry-level laptops that are used for casual work use watts at an average of 40 to 60 watts, depending on the size of the laptop. They are usually 14 to 16 inches in size and use slightly less and more watts.
Power Consumption in Different Sized Laptops
Size changes everything; large-sized laptops use more watts than average, i.e., 50 watts, and can take up to 180 watts for gaming laptops.
It is because the components are more efficient, and the screen display also increases the operation of graphic cards.
Power Consumption in Different Brands Laptops
Although some models are better than others yet, they use the same amount of watts that other laptops use. It only depends on their type and size; otherwise, there are no specifications for the number of watts used by branded laptops.
How to Make Your Laptop Last Longer
Besides searching for a laptop with high battery life, you can use some techniques and make some considerations to make your laptop’s battery last longer.
Usually, people complain that the battery life of their devices decreases with time. It happens because of some other factors besides time. To keep your laptop’s battery more long-lasting and efficient:
- Avoid Overcharging: You will have to be more careful about its charging, don’t overcharge your laptop, and remove the adapter as soon as it charges to the fullest. Overcharging a laptop is clearly wasting both the electricity and the adapter’s power because it is overused. As a result, the adapter stops working to its fullest capacity. Also, the battery’s lifespan will decrease due to overcharging.
- Fully Drained Battery: Besides not overcharging it, also make sure to charge it as soon as the battery drops to 20 to 15 %; otherwise, a fully uncharged laptop takes more time to charge and uses more watts of electricity.
- Decrease Screen Brightness: Go to the settings of your laptop and decrease the brightness to some extent. A bright screen consumes more power. However, don’t make it too low to affect your eyesight.
- Use Cooling Pads or Tables: You can find cooling pads or tables with tables that will prevent the laptop from heating due to power consumption and keep it well operating.
- Use your money effectively: Buy a laptop that suits best your need. Opt for a high-end or any laptop with better performance for more battery life. If you try to use an entry-level laptop for gaming, it will surely consume more power. Also, if you have to, buy the right parts of the laptop that are compatible with it.
Wrapping Up – How Many Watts Does Laptop Use :
So basically, a laptop uses watts depending on different factors, components, battery life, size, and type. But for estimation, we can say that a standard-sized laptop between 14 to 16 inches with standard level performance uses almost 50 watts per hour.
However, with the given guidelines above, if you can decrease the battery drain, you can also reduce the watts used by a laptop per hour.