Battery fatigue is a depressing aspect of many mobile devices. What may have been a three hour laptop when you bought it a couple of years ago might now run out of juice after one hour. Frustrated consumers may upgrade, but this is folly when the rest of the machine can keep on going for years to come.

Lithium-ion batteries, the ones used in modern electronics, are temperature sensitive. If you were only to use your laptop in the fridge it could last up to 14 per cent longer per year.

It is a common myth (and one that I believed until recently) that a battery will live longest if you try and empty the charge completely from it when storing it or before charging it. In fact lithium-ion batteries last longest if they are about 40 per cent full.

If you keep two identical batteries for a year at 40 degrees Celsius, one at 40 per cent charge and the other at 100 per cent charge, the first battery will last 20 per cent longer than the second.

One further consideration to take into account is mechanical parts, like DVD drives, also fatigue over time making them less efficient and more energy consuming.

So even if you work in a fridge battery life may always get worse.