The battery consumption of a laptop is one of the points that we must always take into account when renewing our old equipment. If we do not plan to renew it, we can use different tricks to extend, as far as possible, the autonomy that offers. To all these functions, we have to add a new one that will arrive in the next Windows updates, a function designed to offer greater autonomy on laptops and that can also be used on desktop computers.
Microsoft is testing a new feature through the Windows Insider New Features beta channel. One of the most striking functions is focused on reducing battery consumption and, in general, the energy consumed by any computer equipment and which is in charge of automatically regulating the brightness of the screen or monitor.
Remember that the screen is one of the components that more power consumption have on any electronic device, be it a laptop, smartphone or tablet. Some laptop manufacturers include a sensor that is automatically responsible for regulating the brightness depending on the light conditions of the environment, increasing it to the maximum when we are under sunlight or reducing it practically to the minimum when the environment where we are is poorly lit.
Content-based brightness control
However, this sensor isn’t available on many laptops, especially non-high-end ones, so the feature Microsoft is working on to allow the computer to automatically regulate brightness is very interesting. If we do not have a brightness sensor, Windows cannot obtain information about how to regulate the brightness level, so it will be based on the type of content that we are playing to increase or decrease brightness.
The content-based adaptive brightness control feature will be available on both laptops and desktops to not only increase battery life for the former, but also reduce power consumption for the latter. To make use of this function, we will have to access the Windows configuration section (Win + i), access the menu System and then in Screen. Within the screen, in the Brightness and color section, a drop-down box will be displayed with three options: Off, Always and Only on battery.
Other news
In addition to the function that will automatically adjust the brightness of the screen based on the type of content displayed, the new versions of Windows available through the Beta channel also include two new functions. On the one hand, there are access keys in file explorer, which will allow us to interact with the contextual menu of the mouse in the explorer in a much faster way than at present, where we can only use the mouse. The second function makes changes to how the kernel memory dump to reduce the number of errors and crashes in the equipment.
