Surface Pro 4 Firmware Update

In all last versions of Microsoft Windows, starting from Windows 8, you can use a built-in power management tool to learn more about your laptop battery information and power usage behavior over time. The report is called Battery Report.

What information is in the battery report?

The generated battery report will have the following information about your system’s battery:

Computer and OS information

Battery Report - Basic Info

Installed batteries – show information about each currently installed battery.

Battery Report - Installed Batteries

Recent usage – show power states over the last three days.

Battery Report - Recent Usage

Battery usage – shows how the battery drains over the last three days.

Battery Report - Battery Usage

Usage history – shows the history of system usage on AC and battery.

Battery Report - Usage History

Battery capacity history – show the history of the total charge capacity compared to the design capacity.

Battery Report - Capacity History

Battery life estimates – shows the estimated battery life based on observed drains.

Battery Report - Battery Life Estimates

How to access the battery report

To generate and access the battery report for your Surface device, do the following:

  1. Right-click on the Start menu
  2. Select Command Prompt
  3. Type the “powercfg /batteryreport” command and hit Enter. It will generate the battery life report and save it to your current location with a file named battery-report.html.
    How to generate Battery Report
  4. Now, you can browse and open the report in the command output above.Battery Report and Location

The report has all the essential information about the current device’s battery status. Sometimes, you might need to do a complete recharge cycle multiple times to get more accurate data. This method is applied to all Surface devices, including Surface with Windows RT, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and Windows 11.

FAQs

Check the following frequently asked questions that might answer questions you have.

Question 1

What is the difference between “DESIGN CAPACITY” and “FULL CHARGE CAPACITY”?

Answer

The DESIGN CAPACITY is the total energy storage measured in milli-watt-hours (WH) that the battery was designed to have by the manufacturer. You can find the table of battery design capacities for all Surface devices here.

The FULL CHARGE CAPACITY is the energy storage reported by the battery’s built-in control circuit inside your Surface. The battery is a consumable component that will lose its capacity over time. So, the current capacity is expected to be less than the designed capacity.