A friend of mine has an expensive 15-inch Dell laptop. He does not know much about tech specs, but since much of his work life revolves around his laptop, he si

A friend of mine has an expensive 15-inch Dell laptop. He does not know much about tech specs, but since much of his work life revolves around his laptop, he simply bought the maxed out version. In the hope it makes his life easier. In the hope that every tool he installs makes his life easier too, he installed so much stuff on it, that the battery in this newish laptop lasts less than an hour. So he lugs around this beast of a laptop, with a beast of a charger. And even when he just uses a browser, after 30 minutes, he gets nervous: "I need a power outlet!". Every time I watch this drama in confusion, I ask him why he doesn't look up what software drains his battery, and what he can do about it. That makes him very uncomfortable, and he proclaims: "No, it's Dell's fault! And I can use the laptop with a power outlet! No problem!". Somehow, analyzing what software does seems to make some people so uncomfortable that they never look into it and therefore never blame bad software for its behavior.