Lenovo Y520 Battery Upgrade

[Brad Oxford]

So, I just purchased the Lenovo Y520 about a month ago, and absolutely love it. It's portable, cool, and light. However, I have one MAJOR gripe. It's something that a lot of reviewers complained about, but I didn't know it was this bad. That's the extremely tiny battery in the laptop. When I say tiny, I mean 'it shouldn't have been allowed to be released with this small of a battery' tiny. To put it into perspective, I have Discord, Chrome (with 3 tabs opened), and Spotify opened with the battery saver mode (via control panel, along with the Windows 10 shortcut) on. At 80%, it says I have 35 minutes left. 35 minutes at nearly full charge with all power saving options turned on with only a couple apps opened. That, in my opinion, is rubbish. That brings me to my question. Would it be possible to purchase a larger battery online, and put it into the laptop, so I can get at least a few hours out of it before it dies?

 

[GreyCatz]

I don't think Lenovo have any battery packs available for any consumer-grade laptops. And you can only get battery upgrade packs or battery life extenders for certain, upper-tier ThinkPads.

You can search different battery sites and perhaps find a more powerful unit that might physically fit, but I cannot recommend it. Battery life is often determined by brand-specific software - best case, you gain nothing; worst case, you fry resistors and other main board components.

The Y520 is Lenovo's gaming rig, which means it's all about awesome graphics - and nothing else. Battery life is a joke on all gaming rigs, and often they weigh a ton because you're actually not supposed to carry it around on a daily basis, like you would a dual-core notebook or ultra-book.

I don't mean to be rude, but the scenario you painted in your post is roughly similar to using a Lamborghini for grocery shopping and complaining about the bad fuel economy.

 

[Brad Oxford]

I don't think Lenovo have any battery packs available for any consumer-grade laptops. And you can only get battery upgrade packs or battery life extenders for certain, upper-tier ThinkPads.

You can search different battery sites and perhaps find a more powerful unit that might physically fit, but I cannot recommend it. Battery life is often determined by brand-specific software - best case, you gain nothing; worst case, you fry resistors and other main board components.

The Y520 is Lenovo's gaming rig, which means it's all about awesome graphics - and nothing else. Battery life is a joke on all gaming rigs, and often they weigh a ton because you're actually not supposed to carry it around on a daily basis, like you would a dual-core notebook or ultra-book.

I don't mean to be rude, but the scenario you painted in your post is roughly similar to using a Lamborghini for grocery shopping and complaining about the bad fuel economy.

Oh, I understand that the battery life isn't usually the best on gaming laptops. I never expected to get 9-10 hours on battery like you would a Macbook or whatnot. However, the battery life is in a league of its own. The ASUS STRIX GL753 gets upwards of 4 hours. The Dell Inspiron Gaming gets 7-8 hours. Like I said, I'm aware that gaming notebooks don't have good battery life, and that's for obvious reasons. However, I expected to get more than a half hour of usage from a full charge. Is 2-3 hours that much to ask for?

 

[GreyCatz]

No, 2 to 3 hours of useful up-time isn't too much to ask - I totally agree - even if it's a gaming rig. But a lot of gaming laptops will list 3 or 4 hours of battery life, but when they are tested by reviewers or owners, battery life plummets to 30 or 40 minutes the moment they open a game. And those are the good gaming brands, like MSI and ASUS with years of gaming experience.

Lenovo have never been at the forefront of battery life (with their consumer-grade laptops), and Lenovo themselves call the recently launched Y520 an "entry-level" gaming laptop, so I'm not really that surprised that battery life on the Y520 is so poor. That said, you're definitely not alone: Users on Lenovo's own forum are equally frustrated. The best advice, for the time being, seems to be to return the laptop for a refund - I'm not joking.

On that note, if you need a powerful computer that will do gaming and productivity in equal measure, you could consider a Y700 or a Dell Inspiron 15 - you won't get a 10-series GTX card but you will get significantly better battery life.

 

[Brad Oxford]

No, 2 to 3 hours of useful up-time isn't too much to ask - I totally agree - even if it's a gaming rig. But a lot of gaming laptops will list 3 or 4 hours of battery life, but when they are tested by reviewers or owners, battery life plummets to 30 or 40 minutes the moment they open a game. And those are the good gaming brands, like MSI and ASUS with years of gaming experience.

Lenovo have never been at the forefront of battery life (with their consumer-grade laptops), and Lenovo themselves call the recently launched Y520 an "entry-level" gaming laptop, so I'm not really that surprised that battery life on the Y520 is so poor. That said, you're definitely not alone: Users on Lenovo's own forum are equally frustrated. The best advice, for the time being, seems to be to return the laptop for a refund - I'm not joking.

On that note, if you need a powerful computer that will do gaming and productivity in equal measure, you could consider a Y700 or a Dell Inspiron 15 - you won't get a 10-series GTX card but you will get significantly better battery life.

You bring up a good point. See, I wouldn't be complaining if it was 30-40 minutes of actual gaming on battery. That's to be expected. However, I'm getting <40 minutes when I have Chrome, Spotify, and Discord open, with all possible power saving options turned on, with the screen at 30% brightness. If I were to bring the screen up to 60%, and change the power plan to balanced, I get <25 minutes. I may just return it if this is normal, and spend an extra £100 to get a laptop with a bigger battery. Thanks!