Reserve Battery Level vs. Critical Battery Level
There are 3 Battery levels – Low battery, Reserve battery, and Crtical battery. We will take a look at the following topics in this post:
1] What is Reserve Battery Level in Windows Laptops?
Windows 10 OS marks a certain percentage of battery capacity as Reserve. When it reaches that level, it asks the end-user to start saving their work. It also kickstarts essential services to preserve the state of the computer. Low battery warning or Reserve Battery prompts the user to begin saving their work and switch to an additional power source.
2] What is Critical Battery Level?
Critical Battery Level is where Windows 10 initiates a normal action like Sleep, Hibernate, or Shutdown depending on the settings. When the battery hits a certain percentage, it will not wait for the user, but instantly initiate one of the actions to safeguard any abrupt shutdown and data loss.
3] Difference between Reserve Battery Level & Critical Battery Level
I am going to draw an analogy here. Imagine your computer as a car and battery as your petrol tank. Reserve battery level is nothing but the reserve in your gas tank. You can use the gas in reserve to drive the car for some time, but not for long. Critical Battery level is when your gas tank is almost dry, and the vehicle shuts down the engine to safeguard it from damage.
4] How to change the Reserve Battery Level in Windows 10
Windows 10 allows you to change the battery level percentage and what the laptop does then for both. The default percentage for Reserve Battery Level is 9%. If you have a laptop with higher battery storage capacity, then 9% means that you can use it longer compared to other laptops which have lesser battery capacity. E.g., 9% of 5000 mAh is greater than 9% of 3000 mAh capacity.
How to increase or decrease reserve battery to power options in Windows 10 If you set the percentage to 0 or 1, you might not have enough time before the battery hits Critical Level which will shut down the computer or take appropriate action—Hibernate, Shut down, Sleep. Hibernation is the best option as it will be a lot faster, save your work and save battery for a longer duration. Now that you have a clear understanding of both levels adjust it accordingly, make sure to save work, and shut down the computer timely. It’s not a good idea to drain the battery below 10% every time nor you should keep plugged in all the time.
