Laptop computers are one of the fastest growing segments of the personal computer industry. Laptops originally accounted for only two percent of the worldwide market share in 1986 when they were first introduced. But growth has been rapid, and in 2008 more laptop computers were shipped than desktop systems for the first time, with 38.6 million units rolling off factory floors.

While laptop computers offer mobility and the freedom to use your machine in a diversity of environments, they also suffer from all too many constraints. The chief limitation of laptops must be their battery life. The battery life of laptops ranges dramatically from model to model, with the MacBook Air lasting for five hours and 32 minutes, compared to the Lenovo laptop ThinkPad X230’s 7 hours 19 minutes and the HP Folio 13‘s six hours and eight minutes, as found by Engadget.com.

Battery life determines whether you have to carry an extra, and often heavy, power adaptor with you when you go out with your laptop. It determines how long you can work and what tasks you can do on your laptop, for fear of draining the battery. It could be a serious danger to your information or work if the battery doesn’t last as long as you expected it to, with lost or damaged information as a result.

But there are ways to increase your laptop’s battery life. We look at three ways to do so, with either usage habits, hardware tweaks or software.

One of the best ways to extend the battery life of your laptop is to adapt your usage behaviour with the machine. For example, unplug all peripheral devices unless they are in use — like external drives, USB storage devices and card readers. This ensures that battery life isn’t drained unnecessarily.

Another way to prolong your laptop’s battery life is to watch how much light your machine is emanating. The brightness of your display is therefore critical. Apple laptops, for example, have function keys on the upper left-hand corner of the keyboard that allow you to control brightness easily. Some laptops have illuminated keyboards, another potential drain on battery life. Turn off your illuminated keyboard until you need it.

A series of hardware and software solutions can extend your laptop’s battery life by nearly an hour, a test by PC World found. The magazine used an Acer Aspire running Windows for the test. The laptop originally clocked three hours and 16 minutes of battery life. After the modifications, the laptop clocked four hours and 19 minutes.

The PC World test first disabled all unnecessary applications from launching when the computer booted up. Some of these applications may be pre-loaded or run in the background, so you may not be aware of them. PC World ran the MSConfig application to prevent all applications from launching at boot. This test also disabled all unnecessary hardware, including integrated devices, through the Device Manager application. In addition, PC World also carried out some of the tips mentioned earlier in this article, including disconnected all peripheral devices and lowering the laptop display’s brightness, in this case, to 75 percent.

The result of this laptop test was nearly an hour of added battery life, or a 32 percent gain. According to the magazine, boot times were also reduced and more CPU resources and memory were made available as a result of the tweaks, resulting in a faster laptop overall.

The simple tweaks outlined here should allow your laptop to deliver significantly more battery life, extending your mobility and productivity.