Edge has smarter tab management, resource controls, and tighter Windows integration that Chrome doesn’t, all of which made a difference in how fast my laptop’s battery drained.
Related How to View Battery Cycle Count on a Windows Laptop Learn how to check the battery cycle count on Windows 10, and what the cycle count reveals about battery health.
Edge was far more aggressive at throttling background tabs and my laptop consistently lasted 15% longer compared to using Chrome.
The clearest example is how Edge handles Windows Battery Saver.
When I put my laptop in battery saver mode, Edge automatically switches to Maximum energy saving mode.
Most of my work happens inside a browser, so it’s not exactly a surprise to see my browser sitting at the top of the battery usage chart. That's also why I never really questioned Chrome. That is, until I switched to Edge a few weeks ago.
I noticed that my laptop lasted 15-20% longer when I used Edge, and it wasn’t a fluke. Edge has smarter tab management, resource controls, and tighter Windows integration that Chrome doesn’t, all of which made a difference in how fast my laptop’s battery drained.
Related How to View Battery Cycle Count on a Windows Laptop Learn how to check the battery cycle count on Windows 10, and what the cycle count reveals about battery health.
Edge wastes far fewer resources on tabs I’m not using
It doesn’t let idle tabs run wild
All of my research, work, communication, and even music streaming happens inside a browser. So you really can’t blame me for hoarding dozens of tabs open. At any given point, I probably have north of 30 tabs open across two or three windows. And that means how a browser manages those tabs matters a lot.
Sure, Chrome does a decent job of putting inactive tabs to sleep. There’s even a Memory Saver feature that puts inactive tabs to sleep after a short period of time. But even then, Chrome usually waits for a few minutes before suspending an idle tab.
Edge is much more aggressive about this. You can set it and put tabs to sleep after 30 seconds of inactivity. The difference may not seem huge, but if you multiply this same behavior with 20 or 30 tabs, the savings can be substantial. In fact, Microsoft claims sleeping tabs can cut memory usage by up to 87% and CPU usage by 99%. I also noticed this almost immediately after switching. I had far fewer instances where the Edge became unresponsive even when I had too many tabs open.
The story remained the same when I tried using both the browsers with their Energy Saver modes on. Edge was far more aggressive at throttling background tabs and my laptop consistently lasted 15% longer compared to using Chrome. I also like how Edge offers a bit more control here. I could set the energy saver to Balanced or Maximum savings, depending on what I wanted. Chrome, unfortunately, only offers a simple on/off switch for Energy Saver.
Edge’s resource controls help me keep power usage in check
I told Edge to stop at 12GB and it listened
Screenshot by Pankil Shah -- No attribution required
Another thing that helped Edge stay efficient was the Resource Controls. It basically lets you put a cap on how much RAM the browser could use. My laptop has 24GB of it, so I capped Edge at 15GB, which is more than enough for the work I do. Once it gets close to that limit, it starts discarding tabs to claw back memory.
Of course, it doesn’t necessarily stop Edge from crashing under extreme load, but it almost guarantees the browser would never take Windows down with it just because my tabs ate through everything available.
Chrome doesn’t offer anything like this. That means it has a free hand when it comes to how much RAM it can use. I’m not saying it crashed often or routinely maxed out my memory. But yes, it was consistently sitting at higher RAM usage than Edge simply because there was nothing keeping it in check. And higher usage also meant it was using more battery than Edge.
Deep Windows integration also helps
Home field advantage
Pankil Shah/MakeUseOf Credit: Pankil Shah/MakeUseOf
This one’s a bit obvious, but still worth talking about. Since Edge is built by Microsoft, it integrates with Windows in ways Chrome simply can’t. The clearest example is how Edge handles Windows Battery Saver. When I put my laptop in battery saver mode, Edge automatically switches to Maximum energy saving mode. And that means it throttles tabs harder to cut resource usage across the board.
The other thing that helped me was Edge showed all the tab entries clearly inside the Windows Task Manager. So any time I was managing resource usage manually, I could clearly see the tabs and processes that were misbehaving and needed handling. Chrome’s process list, by comparison, is a mess because all it shows is a dozen entries labeled “Google Chrome,” which doesn’t help at all. Sure, Chrome has its own task manager that can help, but that’s an extra step.
A few other tweaks helped maximize my battery life
Switching to Edge wasn’t the only thing I did to cut down the unnecessary battery drain. Checking the Task Manager also made me realize just how much some of my extensions were pulling, and a few of them I wasn’t even actively using. Trimming that list helped a lot.
Another thing I did was disable Startup Boost. This option basically lets Edge run in the background as soon as Windows boots. That sounds useful, but it also meant Edge was using resources unnecessarily any time I was using my laptop for anything other than browsing (which is mostly gaming). I even stopped Edge from running in the background after I closed the window. Doing all of it improved my laptop’s battery by 20%, and I’ll take it any day.
