Is your laptop consuming too much power than usual? Does the battery drain faster like the rocket in the sky? These unfortunate reasons might indulge you in raising the question of how many watts does a laptop use?
Well, it’s not easy to give a straight answer to it because overall watts consumption is not the same for every laptop, many factors should be considered. However, to make your mind clear, a standard laptop can consume 20 to 100 watts per hour. The number may rise for the higher-end models, especially the gaming ones.
By now, you must have gotten the idea about how much watts does a standard laptop consume? But that’s not enough since you want to know the exact watts consumption of your laptop. To help you with that, we have described some important factors below that influence the overall watts usage of a laptop.
Read on to have detailed and thorough knowledge about it. So, without wasting any bit of your valuable time, let’s get started.
What is a Watt?
Before determining the wattage of a laptop, it’s essential to have info about that peaky thing called watt.
In simple words, a watt is the power unit used to determine the power consumption of devices, including a laptop. If your laptop consumes more watts, the battery will drain faster.
Important Factors Which Influence The Watts Consumption Of A Laptop
Let’s take a look below to know about factors that play an important role in influencing the watts consumption of a laptop.
Power Supply & Adapter
An adapter is a device that you plug into your laptop to charge the battery. A smaller laptop needs an adapter with less power, while the higher-end requires a more powerful adapter.
How many watts your adapter consumes ultimately affects the power consumption of a laptop. If it’s low quality, your laptop watts consumption will be low. On the other hand, For the powerful ones, laptop wattage will ultimately rise.
To analyze the power usage of your laptop, you can check the wattage of its adapter.
Graphics Card
Your laptop display mechanism is run under the influence of a Graphics Card. A laptop with quality visuals must be equipped with a higher-grade graphic card. Similarly, the low-visual laptop will be a result of a low-grade graphic card. Higher grade graphics need more power to run than lower ones.
So, if your laptop has a high-definition graphic card, its watts consumption would be high. On the other hand, if it has low graphics meaning the watts usage will be low. With that said, the graphic card is an important factor that must be held into account to determine the laptop’s watts utilization.
Central Processing Unit
The CPU is the computer’s brain that is responsible for its overall functioning. The CPU case is different compared to other devices. Its lower-end types consume more power than the high-grade ones.
It differs on each laptop. If your laptop is of the higher model, the CPU will consume less power, resulting in low watts consumption. On the contrary, the low-type model CPUs will be subjected to higher watts utilization.
Screen Dimensions
The screen is the major factor that causes a laptop’s battery to drain faster. You will be surprised to know that an average 16-inch laptop consumes normally 60 watts of power in an hour. So, you can’t put the screen out when analyzing the wattage of the laptop.
If your laptop screen is of a higher size, it ultimately results in consuming more power than a lower one. A laptop screen with a larger dimension can consume up to 100 watts of power in an hour.
External Devices
If you attach external devices with your laptops, such as external screens, controllers, or keyboards, it will consume more watts than usual. With the addition of external devices, the laptop watts utilization rises as a result of more power burden.
So, if you usually add multiple devices to your laptop while working, its wattage will be higher than the standard one.
How Do You Calculate The Watts Consumption Of A Laptop?
In this part, we will tell you the ways which help you in calculating the watts usage of your laptop.
Checking On The Adapter
We have already described how adapters influence the laptop’s watts consumption, here we will look at how it will be used to calculate it.
An adapter can help you to determine the maximum input power a laptop can accommodate. This is because the adapter wattage is considered the same as the laptop’s watts consumption. So, you can check the adapter manufacturer’s guide to know about its wattage.
Checking On The Components
Combining the laptop component’s wattage and putting them in the online power consumption calculator will yield exactly how much power your laptop uses. You can find specifications of the laptops on their respective brand websites. However, the calculated amount will not be the exact one, but it is good to have a rough idea.
Electricity Usage Monitor
One of the finest ways to know the exact watts consumption of your laptop is by using an electricity usage monitor. It is a device that helps to determine the wattage of different devices. You can calculate your laptop wattage using this device.
All you need to do is to plug in your laptop with the device, and it will show you the real-time figures of how much power your laptop uses when it’s working.
How To Make The Battery Last Longer?
The laptop’s wattage is dependent on the life of the battery. If the battery has a good battery life, it will put less burden on the laptop’s wattage. Keeping this in mind, you must look out for ways to make the battery last longer than usual.
Here is how you can increase the battery life.
Keep The Brightness Low
Reducing the screen brightness will significantly lessen the power usage of the battery. You will be surprised to know that 60% of the battery drainage is on the brightness of the screen. So, you must keep the screen brightness low to help the battery last longer. This will also help to reduce the laptop’s power usage.
Get a Cooling Pad
When you use a laptop for a long time, it starts generating more heat. However, the cooling mechanism is doing its best to keep things cool, but in some areas, it’s failed to perform better.
In this case, a cooling pad makes a great difference to keep the laptop cool and boosts its performance. As a result, the laptop components will perform better and put less load on laptop wattage. Keeping this in mind, you must get a cooling pad to reduce the battery drainage.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many watts does an Apple Macbook use?
How many watts a Macbook uses depends on the screen sizes of different models. For example, a 13-inch Macbook consumes 61 watts of power, while a 15-inch model consumes 87 watts per hour.
How many watts does a Lenovo laptop use?
A Lenovo laptop can consume anywhere between 45 to 70 watts of power per hour, depending on the model type.
How many watts does a Dell laptop use?
A Dell laptop can consume anywhere between 30 to 90 watts of power per hour, depending on the model type.
How many watts does an HP Laptop use?
An HP laptop can consume anywhere between 40 to 150 watts of power per hour, depending on the model type.
Final Word
A laptop’s watts consumption is not dependent on one thing but multiple factors. That’s why wattage is not the same for each laptop. To know about your laptop’s exact watts usage, you can follow the methods given in the article. We hope this article helps to find your queries solved. If yes, don’t forget to check other posts on your blog.