Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 Battery Life Issue

timmeh15 on 24/10/2023 - 17:42
Last edited 24/10/2023 - 17:51 by 1 other user

Bought the 15" model in January of this year and one of the key reason I bought this model cause of the extended battery life which is reported of 15 hours+ on various reviews but I never ever got close to that mark. I only get around 4-5 hours maximum battery life based on Chrome and Youtube usage and I noticed the issue when I first bought the laptop but never got around to deal with it but it's really starting to bug me now. Want to check if there's anything I may have missed which may cause the issue before I call Microsoft and will be without laptop for a period of time.

I only charge the laptop once it gets to 20% mark and charge it to 100% and will disconnect it and very rarely leave it on charge overnight.
I have updated all availble updates for the laptop to ensure it's not OS or outdated drivers causing issue.
Noticed this issue when I first bought it so in theory shouldn't be malware or dodgy software draining it in the background.
I ran the battery report on Windows and showed I've only done battery cycle 35 times so battery is still fresh in terms of cycle count wise.

Installed batteries
Information about each currently installed battery
BATTERY 1
NAME SurfaceBattery
MANUFACTURER SMP
SERIAL NUMBER 0009302237
CHEMISTRY LION
DESIGN CAPACITY 47,700 mWh
FULL CHARGE CAPACITY 46,540 mWh
CYCLE COUNT 35

Computing 15inch Computer Laptop Microsoft

Comments

  • Jimothy Wongingtons on 24/10/2023 - 18:03
    +1

    very rarely leave it on charge overnight.

    Just putting it out there - don’t most batteries these days don’t have memory effect, and have pass through charging?

    • bargaino on 24/10/2023 - 18:19
      +3

      Memory effect was in NiCad, NiMH batteries. So 30 years ago for laptops?

      Yes, with Li-ion you should just top it up when convenient, and leave it plugged in while using.

  • thatonethere on 24/10/2023 - 19:02

    Yeah my SL5 doesnt really last more than 5 hrs on battery. If you cripple it it will last longer. But very laggy.

  • AustriaBargain on 24/10/2023 - 19:10
    +1

    Microsoft claims it has 17 hours battery life:

    Up to 17 hours of battery life based on typical Surface device usage on Surface Laptop 5 15”

    Testing conducted by Microsoft in August 2022 using preproduction software and preproduction 15” Intel® Core™ i7, 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 eight popular websites over multiple open tabs, (2) a productivity test utilising Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote 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 150 nits with Auto-Brightness disabled. WiFi was connected to a network. Tested with Windows Version 11.0.22621 (21H2). Battery life varies significantly with settings, usage and other factors.

    Microsoft count standby time in their battery life claims. But it does have an intel chip in it, with active use 5 hours probably sounds about right. 150 nits doesn't sound very bright either for the screen.

    Apple have probably spoiled people's expectations for battery life I think.

    • timmeh15 on 25/10/2023 - 00:39

      That's pretty deceptive IMO cause my wife's Macbook can run for hours on Chrome and YouTube without a charge so after checking on specs I thought Microsoft had a genuine product that could compete in battery life.

      I knew I was never going to get 17 hours on the spec sheet, would have been happy for 8 hours of solid browsing.

      • AustriaBargain on 25/10/2023 - 01:45

        Apple are more honest with their battery life estimates probably because they can afford to be. It says i5 on the box though, like what would you expect? Mobile version of i5 is still a mainline Intel chip.

  • David2017 on 24/10/2023 - 19:12
    +4
    1. No one is getting 15+ hours on an Intel laptop of any kind. Apple dropped Intel for many reasons but this is one of the main ones.
    2. Chrome and YouTube are literally battery killers by themselves. The display is constantly changing and they're both working the WIFI which is the next biggest drain on batteries apart from the screen and the processor. You could try a different browser like Firefox and see if that helps.
    3. If you open Word, turn off all the background apps, and dim your screen so you can barely see it, you may get close to their claimed battery life.

    If you want the best battery life, buy a Macbook. There is no competitor to those machines at the moment in terms of runtime.

    Just FYI, every single Surface I've seen from the early ones to the Pro 9's without exception has failed in some way and I've seen dozens. I've either had to rebuild them or send them back to be replaced and sometimes I've sent them back after being rebuilt. They're a massive headache. Why Microsoft keeps selling them and why people keep buying them is beyond me.

    • AustriaBargain on 24/10/2023 - 20:27

      Apple dropped Intel for many reasons but this is one of the main ones.

      In his biography, Jobs claimed he had late night screaming matches with the CEO of Intel over the phone about how hot and power hungry their mobile chips were. This would have been over iOS devices, but it obviously carried over to Macs too. ARM is obviously the future for all devices, which is why Nvidia is betting big on ARM for PC. The chips will be made at a large scale and they will quickly get very powerful. And they'll be immune to all this crypto nonsense driving up GPU prices.

    • Worf on 24/10/2023 - 20:38

      I’ve found chrome to be power hungry on MacBooks too. I just use safari (on a Mac).

      Wife has a surface laptop, they are nice looking machines for a windows device.

      Sounds pretty deceptive when real world usage is approx 4 hours compared to claimed 17 hours… I think a reasonable person would expect at least 12 hours, heck even a 7.5 hour business day’s worth of productivity from something that supposed to be capable of 17 hours. Should be able to return it for false advertising.

      • Gimbleguy on 25/10/2023 - 04:45

        Chrome is power hungry for sure

    • Jimothy Wongingtons on 24/10/2023 - 23:11

      why people keep buying them is beyond me.

      I actually had a great time with my spro 3 - that’s my main reason of keep looking at the new surface pros… but each new gen seem to have some new problem/ unaddressed issues…

    • timmeh15 on 25/10/2023 - 00:45

      I checked multiple reviews from various PC websites and all of them reported way more than the 4 hours I'm getting now. Techradar review: In fact, the final scores show a battery life of half of that, with productivity work running down the laptop after around 10 hours while movie streaming will give you just seven and a half hours.

      I'm genuinely thinking reviewers get a different model than the ones normal consumers are getting! Feels like VW emission scandal vibe.

  • HairyChickens on 24/10/2023 - 19:48

    Nothing unusual for Surface Laptops. I've owned an i5 SL3 and bought an i7 SL5 back in December.

    Fresh out of the box I noticed poor battery performance with the SL5. On Best Performance, I was getting 4ish hours and now I am getting 3-4 hours probs due to battery degradation.
    This was the same thing for my SL3 as well as my replacement SL3 (was replaced due to screen crack defect). 4ish hours new about 2-3 hours now.

    Don't bother contacting Microsoft. Earlier this year I went to the Microsoft store in Sydney and one of the people there tested the battery drain of my laptop and it seemed normal to them.

    Bought the SL5 coz I liked the design, wanted to stay on Windows and wanted light gaming. In hindsight, I should have learnt my lesson with the SL3 and bought a Macbook. From what I heard they have good battery life. (Obviously, manufacturer quoted numbers are not always reflective of reality but I want a laptop that lasts the entire day without needing to charge).

    Also side note to maintain battery health you should be charging it from 20-80% People say newer devices have software limitations which stop charging once 100% has been reached but I found it still degrades the battery.

    • timmeh15 on 25/10/2023 - 00:49

      Was never a Mac person same reason as you bought it because of the slim design but now starting to regret it.

      Wonder if AMD CPU would have made any difference, shame it was never an option for SL5 series.

      • HairyChickens on 25/10/2023 - 01:00

        I forgot that during January I made a similar post too. Maybe should have read that before you bought your laptop lol.

        AMD Surface Laptops also have poor battery life too according to @Jimothy Wongingtons

        • timmeh15 on 25/10/2023 - 01:14

          Looks like I'm not the only person with the same issue! Hopefully other potential buyers will see our posts before making the purchase!

        • Jimothy Wongingtons on 25/10/2023 - 07:34
          +1

          lol man , the whole time I thought op was on about surface pro actually , but yeah surface laptops in generally is definitely nowhere near 6hr let alone 15

          I think I was too tired yesterday

  • jv on 24/10/2023 - 20:06
    +1

    extended battery life which is reported of 15 hours+ on various reviews

    That's probably when in 'sleep' mode.

    • AustriaBargain on 24/10/2023 - 20:29
      +1

      Which is crazy because iPads and MacBooks can last many weeks in sleep mode. Kindle too, I can go three months without using Kindle and wake it up and it'll still have most of the battery left. Probably should be reading more..

  • ausdday on 24/10/2023 - 20:35
    +1

    that's one of the reason i stayed away from Surface device after my Surface Pro 6.

    My SP6 battery became a joke after 2.5 years of normal usage. It barely last 3 hours of normal use. Don't get me wrong, I really like Surface product, their screen, the keyboard, touchpad are all awesome. But Microsoft had been BS about their battery life for many years, especially since Apple switched to M1 processor which boast 20 hours battery life.

    watch Dave2D explain

    • HairyChickens on 24/10/2023 - 20:47

      their screen, the keyboard, touchpad are all awesome

      Yep, part of the reason why I mistakenly bought the SL5. I assumed the battery issue was fixed :/

    • timmeh15 on 25/10/2023 - 03:06

      He got 10 hours on the Intel SL4, pretty jealous TBH considering his reviews is based on the previous generation! Still don't understand how all these reviewers can squeeze more than 8 hours and everyone else is struggling to get 3 or 4 hours max?

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