My Laptop battery does not last long enough to record my lectures?

My Laptop battery does not last long enough to record my lectures?

Laptops will generally have a battery that lasts a few hours, under a light load.

A light load is one or two browser tabs/windows and one light app such as Word or Teams.

ANY recording app, making notes/incorporating AI in some way or otherwise is a significant load and will vastly decrease the battery life in even ideal circumstances, such as recording from the headset.

If you are using a laptop under significant load, and it is not plugged into a power source your risk data loss and/or not being able to record an entire lecture.

The solution to this is NOT using a Laptop power bank, which are expensive, or a standard power bank, which will literally "charge" the laptop for minutes at most:

A partial way to alleviate, though not solve the issue as again, it is not an optimal solution is by creating a new power plan:

If a program, such as Glean/Genio/TalkType/Dragon etc is running, trying to make out an unfamiliar voice from across a noisy lecture hall/room and generate notes.
All while potentially powering an external microphone and any other devices, even a laptop with a 10+ hour advertised battery life will drain in under 2 hours.

The solution to this problem, is to use the App and Microphone as intended.

For example, with Dragon, see this article:


For TalkType/Glean/Genio or similar, much of the same advice applies. A Microphone has to work twice as hard with an unfamiliar voice, twice that again if not a headset, twice again if a foot away etc.

In addition, the laptop is likely not designed to power a Microphone and make "live" notes while not plugged in.



In a pinch, an "attached" Microphone can make the recording, and again to save power import and create any notes later or ensure the laptop is plugged in and/or the Microphone is powered by a power bank..

This is especially true of the standard, entry level DSA awarded laptops:

If plugging in is not possible, recording the lecture and importing later, using the mobile app or an external Microphone is best usage.

In addition to the above, make sure to restart the laptop twice a week and keep the laptop on charge whenever possible.