Surface Battery Tips and Tricks - 2021 Update! 

This is a great set of recommendations and tips. One thing I would add is that Microsoft recommends draining the battery to under 20% at least once a month to keep the battery fresh. I'm not sure about the science/engineering behind it but as a road warrior (during non-pandemic times) I can tell you it does help in the long run. Another thing I would say is if the battery is behaving badly (for example, if battery charge capacity has worn down very quickly in recent days or weeks and you can't figure out why) don't hesitate to talk to Microsoft about it. I had a Surface Pro (2017) that had battery issues and MS gave me a free replacement after I provided them with all the details they asked for (including a battery report). It looks like it was a problem with that specific device. My replacement had no issues. Well done Brett! Thanks for the video.

I love these videos. I use my surface almost entirely outside of work (except for some light note-taking at work) and it is great to see productivity boosting videos catered toward the device. Keep it up!

Great video! I bought the surface pro 7 a few months ago and love it. I keep it plugged into the docking station most of time, I will have to remember to unplug occasionally and let the battery diminish some.

Well done mate, keep up the good work!

Your vidoes have taught me a lot and helped me pick the right surface pen I needed thank you:-)

Both my wife and I own surface pro 7 and we love them. Keep up the great videos and tips 😀

THAT IS A GREAT VIDEO.. I LEARNED A LOT, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SHARING INFO

Another "Great Video!" few videos having me stopping and getting my two devices in front of me. Checked both my Pro7 & Go. Made some adjustments as recommended. Confident it will help. Thanks for sharing such great content. I'

I have the official ice blue type cover to the Surface Pro 7. I usually leave mine on standby overnight. But if you do this, best to leave it on Battery Saver mode, otherwise it will eat up more battery power. Or you can shut down (which I'm too lazy to do). May also pay to switch to airplane mode while on standby, that way those apps which love to communicate online in the background, can't do that, and thus, consume also less battery. I love the portability and sleek and versatile of Surface, better than HP. It's like a portable thin gaming PC, with a quad core 10th gen Intel Core i7 CPU that can turbo boost to 3.9Ghz.

I love this video very much. great recommended and explanation. Thank you very much.

Thanks, great info and advise.

Worked for me thank you!❤️

Hello, First of all thanks for the vid ! Do you guys think it is better to charge a surface until it's full and then directly use it without the charger pluged in or is it better to let all the time on the charger when using it and once a week let it drain out ?

Excellent tutorial. Very practical and useful.

What also helps go the advanced battery settings in energie management. And go to power plan go to maximum processor state and lower it to around 50% and go to minimum processor state and lower it to 1 % on battery power this means it wil use much les of its processor on battery power while doing light tasks

Thanks for another good video. I install the Microsoft Surface Diagnostic Toolkit on all of my Surface fleet, and that app shows the battery wear, charge cycles, etc, and a tidier format than the command line tool. I also recommend cycling the battery at least once a week if the device is used long term on the dock or charger.

Hi. My Surface PRO charger does not work sometimes and I could not charge my Surface PRO . After Some plug in and Plug out AC input or charger port on the Surface PRO, it take charge and it happen when Surface PRO on or off. How can I solve this ? 🌹🌹

please csn you guide me what does battery circle means..and mwh what is it i am now to this

Hi. Have you ever come across a crackling sound when connecting your surface charger on the SP7?

Hi! Thanks for the tips. BTW I'm a SPX user and I noticed a video-audio sync problem especially on JW Library app. Do you know how to fix it? Thanks in advance!

hi I have Surface pro 3 and 5 on 3 I use Throttlestop to undervoltage both CPU and gpu. maximum 4 hour. on 5 the CPU and gpu locked but I can disable turbo, enable speedshift. tell is 7 or 8 unlocked?

My job requires me to be at my desk then at the blink of an eye away from my desk and I still need to have my pc with me. Pro 7 is perfect. Love it. Wish I would of got the pro 7 plus though. I'm still in return period I may do so

Very nice thorough video with all the angles to help battery life! What monitor is that and how is it with your surface? Does the surface heat up and fans run or is it pretty quiet. I am looking for a good ultra wide for my SL4 and I love LG. Thanks!

Great video, thank you! I would be interested to know how the use of the dock impacts battery. Does using the surface on the dock at 100% charge for long periods impact battery life? How often should it be taken off the dock and allowed to drain to optimise battery life?

Wow...wow..wow....I have so much to say so I'll list it out for clarity:- 1. I only learnt two new things. 2. I knew every other thing already. I use edge for pdf too. It does all I need. And I use the same battery bar program too. I actually bought the software too, it cost very small amount I don't recall exactly how much. I've set it to show time remaining rather than battery remaining. I think that's more helpful to me to estimate weather I should hurry up or not. 3. First new thing was that the SP7+i7 had the worst surface battery. 4. Let the surface cool before you charge it again- that was the second new thing. 5. The fact that I knew so much about surface they things you talked about hereeven though I'm just a surface fan, and don't even have any surface yet, (I plan to buy one soon--not just excited--pumped 😉) I feel so proud. I'm not even in college! Woah!! The power of internet and passion👍👍👍 6. Very helpful video overall, as is usual with all your work. Thanks. 7. One question-- I have asked this on many other video comments as well but no response yet, I know you're busy but I'm hoping you could answer this---which will consume more battery-- SP7+i7/16gb at full power or SP7+i5LTE/16GB at full power and LTE on all time??? Both devices running exact same softwares for the comparison. 8. Like I said, I don't have a surface yet. I'm still researching since it's a lot of money. I plan to use this as my only computer for the next 5 years of my college, which I hope I'll be joining soon. My user case include lots of note taking, pdfs, ebooks, regular photo editing in affinity photo, occasional 4k /30fps video editing, occasional steam games most of them from 2013 or before---i love playing old games. So which device should I go for? SP7+i5LTE or SP7+i7??? 9. Thank you so much if you read this whole comment and even more thanks in advance of you can help me out. Great and helpful video. Keep up the good work. 👍👍👍

I just bought the surface pro 7 with an i7 new 3 days ago and the full charge capacity is 45.440 . Is this normal? I thought it was supposed to be 50.04.

My Surface Pro 4 drains my battery when turned off,It drains about 2 percent an hour,does anyone have a fix for that or is it bin time....thanks

kudos!

Loving your new look... Looks like you've been at gym during this lockdown... or a plethon.... think you need to do a video on this

I checked my battery usage stats because of this video. I see Garmin express using 32 % battery just under Google chrome at 35%. I never use or load Garmin express. It was a one time download for getting a map update for my car! This company needs a metaphorical spanking!

Hi. My battery charging capacity is higher than the designated capacity, is it wrong?

Great video! I don't use my surface pro. With all thus info. Should I keep it plugged in all the time?

Great tips! Do you recommend draining the battery once in a while?

Wooww! I saw on your video that you have JW Library app.

The old Edge used far less power, I liked it better than the chromium based edge.

Great video. My only problem with my SP7 is that the full performance is only available when plugged in, which is kind of a bummer, but so far I was able to live with it.

Is there a way to check a temperature of the battery?

Why my Microsoft surface pro 8 is only 50% charge never full no mater how long I charge it.

Could u help me? I let my surface charge all day and it only charged to 51! What should I do??

I have a SPX has anybody had any success in printing and scanning?

What kind of monitor are you using?

surface pro 6 battery draining faster than usual, might need a fix, if anyone having same issues

I hope this video helps according to the internet it’s menta last 15 hours Mine lasts 3 hours

I use Surface Book 2 and 3. Well, I've 'used' Book 2 and now I use 3 is probably more correct. What I've found is that Surface Books actually will last longer in the Tablet mode. My SB2 is a 2nd hand machine and it did have pretty good battery life. It'll typically last about 4 hours but with the Tablet mode on, it did last about an hour or two more, paired with Edge for web browsing. I've tried turning the dedicated GPU off from the UEFI (when you start your machine, you hold the volume up and power button until you see the Windows boot logo, then you let go of the power but hold onto the volume up button) but that didn't really affect much. I have also got the auto brightness set. I'm looking at around 6 to 7 hours of runtime (Steam on, web surfing on Firefox) without the tablet mode on on my SB3. But just in case, I've got my trusty Promate Capital-30 (30,000mAh 78W PD powerbank) to top up the juice and so far it works fine. It charges well with the portable solar panel I carry in my car so technically I have infinite source of power.

Just wish that there's a way to know how much, roughly, battery you have on your surface without turning the unit on. Like, a small 4 LED somewhere that can be activated to indicate level of battery.

Is it safe to use the surface while plugged in? Cause I find it hotter when I plugged in even when the battery is full. Btw great video. New sub!

Bought a Surface Pro 4 last week that said "Less than 100 Battery Cycles".. Yet it doesnt even last for a Full Hour. I am so dissapointed. This was going to be my dream computer. I love everything about it so much. I just dont have the money to buy a Surface Pro 7. So now im stuck with my power banks every where i go with it :/

My battery life has only been lasting 3 hours on my SP7

just got my surface pro 9, is the battery really this shit?

Won't leaving the surface charge OVERNIGHT constantly be bad for the battery life??? Just like it is for cell phones??

I have a Surface Pro 5. The battery life even using all recommended low battery usage settings I still only get an hourish not video editing, just sketching in a sketch app. It's said to have many hours if battery usage on a full charge. FALSE. This is my second and possibly last time to buy a Surface Pro as the last one didn't hold a charge for more than 20 mins. The fan was faulty, buzzing and over heating constantly. Yes, I had a fan on it and cleaned out the vents. Still junk.

Does keeping the surface pro cable plugged in would affect the lifetime of the battery ?

i have a huge battery drain problem in my surface 4 pro do anyone have any solution

Words I learned today: conjuming

Playing RU-vid from browser, it drains very fast even when first time use and start playing from 100% fully charged. Very disappointing. The specs says can run for 11hrs. But I think if it can last 2 hrs of video play i will be lucky. Suspect that Microsoft is made in China and the factory or reseller may have used lousy or less capacity battery

I do not know the quality of the batteries used in the Surface Pro but I have seen some horror stories as to their long-term performance and that getting them replaced is difficult and expensive. I saw your SP6 with only 437 cycle count and already 18% loss, which is pretty bad. Apple and Samsung give 1000 cycle counts to reach 20% battery capacity loss! Another issue with Surface devices, unlike LG, Samsung and others are that they do not have battery software to enable longevity. On my Samsung, I can stop charging at 85% (LG 80%) so if you keep it on the charger it is doing much less damage. Apple uses a different technique using AI. This cannot help preserve the Surface battery longevity. For basic tasks like web and media, I use power-saving mode which seems to add 2h on my Samsung Flex. On the 10th gen chip, there is no performance hit. Though on my 8th gen LG Gram (i5) performance suffers on this level, so I cannot use this setting. Cheers!

Except that Surface tablets are not serviceable. Batteries are not replaceable without easily breaking the screen, tearing the wifi ribbon or breaking any of the other things glued to the screen.

Never charge to 100%, that is the most degrading factor, only charging to 85% will give you 5-time-bigger cycles.

Surface Pro loses battery power even when it is switched off. After switching off at 94% for two days it loses 50% (down to 44%)...THis is the bad quality of the batteries despite the high price of Microsoft Surfaces. There is no fix. I am selling mine.

However you try there is no improvement. All Surface Pro models are shite battery life! I will never buy one again.

Just buy an iPad they have the best battery life