How do I improve battery longevity?

Question

I recently got a Surface Pro 8 with an i7 core processor, 16 GB Ram, and 512 GB SSD and it is already down to 17% with battery saver and a low brightness levelafter just 5 hours on it. I am concerned for the future use of the Surface Pro 8 because I plan to use this long-term. Is there a way to preserve the battery's health and increase the battery life?

Answer 1

Hi Andy Huynh1,

Thank you for reaching Microsoft Community.

Surface has designed this generation of devices to be up to twice as fast with a balance of performance, battery life, and great user experiences in a thin and light design. As a result of increased performance, overall battery life has been impacted, but we expect customers will continue to get a full day of use from their Surface, and faster charging when they need it.

The Surface Pro 8 was advertised with battery life of up to 16 hours of battery life based on typical Surface device usage. Testing conducted by Microsoft in August 2021 using preproduction software and preproduction Intel® 11th Gen Core™ i5-1135G7, 256GB, 8GB RAM device. Testing consisted of full battery discharge with a mixture of active use and modern standby. The active use portion consists of (1) a web browsing test accessing 8 popular websites over multiple open tabs, (2) a productivity test utilizing Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook, and (3) a portion of time with the device in use with idle applications. All settings were default except screen brightness was set to 150nits with Auto-Brightness and Adaptive Color disabled. Wi-Fi was connected to a network. Tested with Windows Version 11.0.22000.9 (21H2). Battery life varies significantly with settings, usage and other factors. (Surface Pro 8 – The most powerful Pro – Microsoft Surface)

Kindly go to Windows Settings > System > Power & Battery. Select View detailed info. Under Battery usage per app, check to see which app are affecting the battery life of the device. There are several sort options including "background" to help identify. Validate if there are any installed applications that may be using a lot of power.

Please check also the Surface drivers' health through the Surface app and run the Surface Diagnostic Toolkit as this also do some checks on the device including the battery and updates. See: Fix common Surface problems using the Surface app and Surface Diagnostic Toolkit - Microsoft Support. After running the tool, go back to Windows Settings > Windows Updates and check for updates again to make sure that all available updates for the device are installed including Optional updates.

See these pages also for more details in caring for the battery of your Surface:

Caring for your Surface battery - Microsoft Support

Maximize your Surface battery life - Microsoft Support

Kind regards,
Marrion

Answer 2

I believe this is the ability of the device. i have surface pro 8 with i5 and it is the same range. one of the technical support team inform me that this the expected average.

Answer 3

Hi Andy Huynh1,

We haven't heard from you in 72 hours, so we assume that your issue has already been resolved. We will not be monitoring this thread moving forward so, if you need further assistance, please create a new thread to discuss these concerns by clicking this link: Create a new question or start a discussion (microsoft.com)

Thank you for understanding. 

Kind regards,
Marrion