Laptops, perhaps unique among consumer electronics, offer an incredibly wide range of power and battery options. Some are built into the operating system (usually Windows Vista or XP, although similar options are available in the Mac OS X operating system and Linux-based systems), and others are software applications provided by specific PC makers for jumping between power presets. A handful of systems, notably several from Asus, include physical hardware switches that either shift between preset power profiles or even switch on and off CPU and GPU overclocking (although that's still rarely found feature).

Suggested power options in Windows Vista
Laptops, perhaps unique among consumer electronics, offer an incredibly wide range of power and battery options. Some are built into the operating system (usually Windows Vista or XP, although similar options are available in the Mac OS X operating system and Linux-based systems), and others are software applications provided by specific PC makers for jumping between power presets. A handful of systems, notably several from Asus, include physical hardware switches that either shift between preset power profiles or even switch on and off CPU and GPU overclocking (although that's still rarely found feature).

By default, you'll find three preset power plans listed, one called Power saver, one called High performance, and a third option. That third option, depending on the vendor, is often called Balanced or Custom; however, some PC makers customize this plan and name it appropriately. HP laptops call this third power plan "HP Recommended."

From this menu, you can choose a preset power plan, change the settings within a specific power plan, or simply change a handful of settings on the fly through quick links on the left side of the Explorer window.

Opting to change the settings in one of Vista's preset power plans brings you to a new screen. The screen offers pull-down menus for selecting when to turn off the display, put the computer to sleep when running on battery power and when plugged in, and a screen brightness slider for both options.

For a good balance of usability, battery life, and responsible energy use, we suggest the following settings as a good starting-off point.

On battery Plugged in
Turn off the display 5 minutes 15 minutes
Put the computer to sleep 10 minutes 30 minutes
Adjust screen brightness 50 percent 75 to 100 percent

Both the Balanced and Power Saver set the screen brightness to less than 50 percent, which makes for more impressive battery life, but users often find their screens too dark.

To delve deeper, you'll find a link on the Edit plan settings page to "change advanced power settings." Clicking on this brings up a pop-up menu that lets you tweak the battery and plugged in power settings for how long the HDD waits until spinning down, suspending USB ports, and dialing down the maximum processor speed when running on battery power.

In general, these settings should be left alone, with the exception of the "Power buttons and lid" submenu. This menu is also directly available from the initial Power options page, where it's linked as "Choose what closing the lid does."

Unlike windows XP, Vista does not require you to enable the hibernate function before choosing it as an option. Hibernation essentially saves a snapshot of any open applications and documents, saves it to the hard drive, and shuts down the computer to the same state as if you had powered it off through the start menu. When you wake a laptop from hibernation, you'll (eventually) end up exactly where you were, with the same windows, programs, and documents open.

For traveling with a laptop, setting the system to hibernate when you close the lid is key to preserving battery life, and keeps your laptop from overheating in a tightly confined laptop bag. The downside is that while waking up a laptop from sleep mode can take a few seconds, waking it up from hibernate can take as long as booting from a powered-off state.