Bettering laptop battery performance

[Artashes]

I am still researching the subject of how to improve your laptop's battery life. Read a few things but overall I was left with an impressions of:

The more RAM the notebook has, the longer battery life is. There are a few conflicting reports about it - users split in the middle. From one perspective, the more RAM your laptop has the less frequently your computer has to access the HD's virtual page file. So you reduce the work of your hard drive. But at the same time people think the most optimal RAM is 1 GB.

Another thing I was wondering about has to do with gadgets (if you are a Vista user). I heard different things, but overall that gadgets take a lot of juice out of your battery. However, I did not find information proving it.

What are some of your tricks that improve your battery performance?

 

[Zendevi]

Closing gadgets on my desktop in Windows 7 is the only thing I consistently do to save power besides the auto-dimming of the screen. I definitely notice a difference of about 30 minutes with the gadgets gone with my average use.

 

[handsonhosting]

The memory thing may make a little sense, although I've never tried something like that before

For me, on my notebook, it's a stripped down Vista notebook with NONE of the extra gadgets and tools, background graphics or anything like it. Can't say that it extends anything by MUCH, but I know it lasts longer for me - but then I'm on a 1 minute screen blank time, and a 5 minute hibernate, so if I'm not actively using it, it shuts down.