Hello all,
Got a bit of a strange question if anyone can assist?
I have a Yoga 7i bought less than a year ago for £700. It has 16GB DDR5 RAM, 1260P CPU and integrated graphics.
I have done some testing, including running on battery saver, limiting CPU to 80%, running balanced and also high or 'extreme' performance as Lenovo likes to call it.
The problem i have is on battery saver mode and normal, i use a staggering 80% of the battery in two hours. In performance mode, i use the same in an hour and a half.
On battery saver and limit to 80% the CPU is not able to boost so the noise and heat is quite low.
On normal and performance the fans ramp up considerable and the heat is excessive, hot to the touch.
I only watch my own team replay goals, but when looking at Task Manager i see the GPU even in menus is above 50%. Other use of the laptop is general browsing or streaming.
If i watch content such as YouTube on half brightness i get around 6 hours.
The only 'solution' i have found is to run FM24 on my desktop, then RDP from the laptop to the desktop, at 70% brightness i get again 6 hours. But obviously this is running two devices to play one game and not efficient.
Would i get more battery life by actually getting a gaming laptop with a dedicated GPU, the reason being it will be worked less than the integrated one i have now. Think of it like a Ferrari only running at 50% of its capacity to keep up with
a a Ford Fiesta on a racetrack where the Fiesta is running at full power all the time.
I used to have a gaming laptop but did not get on with it, the battery life was just as bad as now, but for all uses such as just browsing, very heavy. I also found that the graphics card would not run at full power unless plugged in.
The two i had basically frame locked at 30fps unless plugged in.
My model Yoga 7i has a 70kWh battery, but there is another model that has a dedicated GPU with a 99kWh battery. People have asked Lenovo on Reddit if they are swappable and this is NOT possible to install the 99kWh in my laptop.
I have also thought of getting a battery pack with USB C charging, but i would want the pack to maintain power NOT charge the battery. There used to be an option in Windows to make it 'plugged in not charging' but using Windows 11
I cant seem to find this anymore. My Battery also has 416 cycles in less than a year, meaning i am fully discharging and charging the battery more than once a day currently.
Ideally i would deplete the battery in the laptop, plug in the power bank and get the laptop to use this and not charge the battery to try and preserve its life.
Sorry for the long post.
Thank you.
Just an update to my previous post about my battery getting hammered. I have a 'solution' for this problem. Went digging and basically bought a 25000 mAh USB C Power Delivery Power bank from INIU. I tested this and its discharge rate was staggering, using its 25000 mAh capacity in 4.5 hours, 2 hours when playing FM. I queried this with the manufacturer and they actually sent me another one for free. My Lenovo laptop has a 'Conservative' Mode where the battery only charges to 80%. With this set i can use the power banks and basically never cycle the battery. They take two hours to recharge so now i can in theory be always plugged in using the power banks. When one runs out, plugging the other one in and charging the expired one up in two hours. I will cycle the laptop battery from 80% to 0% and then back to 80% once a month causing 24 cycles per year. This is MUCH better than the current 434 cycles from my first year of use. Game changer for me. If you like your laptop in general but the battery life is poor or its degraded due to age, very good cost effective solution. Hopefully it will help someone.