The whole point of owning a laptop is to be able to bring your work with you when you’re away from home, but with as much battery power as the average internet browser soaks up, it’s often ill-advised to go anywhere without a charger.
That’s exactly why Opera introduced a new battery saver feature in its latest update, extending the battery life of a connected laptop by an impressive 50%.
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We first covered Opera’s battery saver back when it was announced in May, but alongside the release of Opera 38 this week, the feature is now available for everyone to use. All you need to do is download the latest version of the Opera browser and flip the switch in the top right corner of the window.
As Opera explains, battery saver works by reducing activity in background tabs, pausing plug-ins you don’t need, reducing video frame rates to 30 frames per second and pausing browser theme animations.
Opera claims that a laptop running Opera with battery saver enabled lasted for 2 hours and 56 minutes, while a laptop running Chrome lasted just 1 hour and 54 minutes. The team even put together a time-lapse video of the test to show off how much longer a computer with Opera’s battery saver could last:
