In the past, gaming laptops would last anywhere from two to four hours on a single charge — a woefully short duration compared to their non-gaming counterparts. Powerful hardware like heavy-duty graphics cards requires a lot of energy to run, thus draining the battery.
But trends have changed in recent years thanks to advances in cooling technology, more power efficient hardware, and battery saving software. Nowadays, you can easily score a gaming laptop that lasts a full workday. Let’s dig into the details of these welcome improvements.
Why do gaming laptops have better battery life now?
The first thing you need to understand is that gaming laptops need a lot of power to run higher-tier hardware and those parts generate a good amount of heat, which can further decimate battery life. That’s where a good cooling system comes in.
A good cooling system should include high-quality fans (for moving air around), heat pipes (for moving heat away from important hardware), heatsinks (for dispersing heat), air vents (for proper airflow), thermal paste (for dissipating heat), and vapor chambers (for spreading heat across a larger area). The more fans, vents, and heat pipes you’ve got, the better the battery life.
A vapor chamber, which came onto the scene in 2018, is especially useful for keeping things nice and cool and also preserving battery life. Essentially, it’s a sealed chamber that’s filled with a bit of liquid. When heat from the CPU comes into contact with the vapor chamber, the liquid inside evaporates and absorbs the heat. Pretty cool, right? Heat pipes work in a similar fashion.
These copper tubes contain liquid that boils and evaporates. This vapor then travels to the cooler end of the pipe, drawing the heat away from the CPU and GPU. For the visual learners among us, check out the video below.
