My X1 Carbon's battery life shrunk by more than 20% in just 3 month...

When I first got the laptop (September 24), I charged it and checked out the battery life while browsing and doing some light work, and I got around 5 hours (might have been slightly less by 10 or so minutes). Now, I normally have it plugged in while working 5 days a week, and recently I've gone more mobile and have been using it unplugged. Today morning, I was working remotely using remote desktop & again some light web browsing on my bed so I didn't plug it in, and my battery barely lasted 3:50. This is with the Brightness set to 5 (max is 15, so this is 33% of max brightness!).

This is REALLY crazy! I've lost slightly more than 20% and I've had maybe less than 2 dozen full discharge cycles over 3 months. I can only imagine what a true road warrior going through one or two cycles a day must be seeing after 3 months...

Anyone else have a similar experience with their X1 Carbon's battery life shrinking this rapidly? Or maybe a counter experience? Looking forward to seeing what other fellow owner's experience has been .

 

Reduced run time has two constituent factors: a) lower capacity, or b) a higher rate of discharge.

a) Did you run the battery gauge reset to check true capacity? If this has gone down 20% this quickly, I'd recommend getting the battery replaced; this is abnormal.

b) Did you install a bunch of task resident programs? If so, then close as many tray programs as you can when running on battery power.

Here's something that helped with my W520 battery life:
1) Go into Windows Power Options.
2) Find your profile, and open up it's advanced configuration dialog.
3) Find Minimum CPU performance, and set it to 0%.
4) Find Maximum CPU performance, and cap this to 33%.

This seems to make battery drain far more consistent. I don't feel like it makes the system any less snappy, but you can tweak that 33% value as you wish based on your CPU.
Also, avoid Skype, iTunes, and Chrome. These drain battery power. Avoid using Bluetooth (disable the adapter) as it keeps the entire USB subsystem powered and draining battery.