Defining a custom resolution can cause problems, although I've never heard of any real world cases of issues like the ones described in that warning.  However, you shouldn't need to define a fully custom resolution to select 1080p, or even be trying to do change your resolution through Intel Graphics Control Panel.  You should just be able to select 1920x1080 in Windows under Settings > Display.

That said, while you can certainly run 1080p, it’s unlikely to change your battery life situation much because even if you only send a 1080p signal, the display still has a 4K array of pixels that are being used and being backlit, and there’s still a touchscreen digitizer active. The backlight is the main source of higher battery drain compared to a native 1080p panel because 4K panels require brighter backlights to achieve a given brightness because the pixel density is so much higher, and 4K panels also often have higher brightness ratings on top of that because they're positioned as more premium.  You might save a tiny amount of battery life because the GPU won’t have to work as hard to render 1080p compared to 4K, but I wouldn’t expect much from that.  However, your system also shouldn't be dying in a couple of hours either unless you're doing highly intensive work, so there may be something else going on.  Does Task Manager show sustained CPU activity, for example?

Something else must be draining your battery. I have a 9370 with the 4K panel, and I can get at least 8 hours with normal usage that doesn't involve gaming or CPU intensive applications that would cause the fans to ramp up. I have the brightness set to 40 percent, which is plenty bright for my purposes.

i've checked everything , no background apps , no bloatware , plus im only using it for browsing and emailing . im very glad that you have the exact same model as mine , because i wonna ask you if lowering the resolution from 4K to 1920x1080 will damage the system , and if i could do it should i change it for inter UHD graphics or go about doing it from SETTINGS > DISPLAY , as everytime i try changing the resolution a warning message pops up that says changing the resolution will damage the hardware . ( i included a screenshot of the warning in my original post )

THANKS

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@johnclive wrote:

i've checked everything , no background apps , no bloatware , plus im only using it for browsing and emailing . im very glad that you have the exact same model as mine , because i wonna ask you if lowering the resolution from 4K to 1920x1080 will damage the system , and if i could do it should i change it for inter UHD graphics or go about doing it from SETTINGS > DISPLAY , as everytime i try changing the resolution a warning message pops up that says changing the resolution will damage the hardware . ( i included a screenshot of the warning in my original post )

THANKS

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@johnclive as @Smoothieboy suggested the system should give you more than a few hours of battery life even with the 4K screen. 

I would suggest following the instructions detailed in this non Dell approved link about what is draining your battery - https://www.howtogeek.com/241676/how-to-see-which-applications-are-draining-your-battery-on-windows-10/

There are other performance based factors which could also be causing this, i.e what performance plan you are running when the system is on battery only i.e balanced, battery saver or maximum performance, the screen brightness you are running

Is the battery charging to 100% when the ac adaptor is connected?
Do you see any massive drops in battery percentage during use or does it gradually decrease?
Is the battery getting excessively hot?

Alan

Ive checked all of that 

Brightness 0%

Power plan : balance 

Battery charges to 100% easy , and no sudden drops in battery charge .

Im almost certain its that  miserable 4K screen thats draining my battery  .

Can i lower the resolution from from 3840×2160 to 1920×1080 without damaging the chipset , video card or the hardware inside 

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@johnclive wrote:

Ive checked all of that 

Brightness 0%

Power plan : balance 

Battery charges to 100% easy , and no sudden drops in battery charge .

Im almost certain its that  miserable 4K screen thats draining my battery  .

Can i lower the resolution from from 3840×2160 to 1920×1080 without damaging the chipset , video card or the hardware inside 

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@johnclive did you try the battery usage check as per the article as everything else checks out ok?

As @jphughan mentioned above, running at a lower resolution is fine, especially if you choose one of the predefined resolutions that are available. It shouldn't do any damage to the chipset or the panel.

Alan

Thank you very much Alan for your input . Done the battery usage check , found out that my chrome browser was using 43% of my resources so im going to replace it with a lighter browser .

Plus im switching to a lower resolution of 1920x1080 .

Hopefully the combination of both will solve the problem .

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@johnclive wrote:

Thank you very much Alan for your input . Done the battery usage check , found out that my chrome browser was using 43% of my resources so im going to replace it with a lighter browser .

Plus im switching to a lower resolution of 1920x1080 .

Hopefully the combination of both will solve the problem .

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@johnclive, ouch that's quite a drain on the battery. Have you tried just restoring chrome to it's defaults before running another browser?

I look forward to hearing how you get on.

Alan

For a while, Chrome had a reputation for being a battery hog, but I thought Google tried to address that. I use Firefox, but there are lots of alternatives.

One thing you might check is whether your battery is defective and has reduced capacity. You can run the following command which will give you some detailed info, including what the current capacity of the battery is compared to its design capacity:

powercfg  /batteryreport  /output c:\users\YourUserName\Downloads\BatteryRpt.html

Make sure to replace "YourUserName" with . . . . YOUR username. This will generate the report and place it in your downloads folder. See how the full charge capacity compares with the design capacity. This info is at the top of the report. Further below is a list of capacity measured over time so you can see if it suddenly degraded.

That's really helpful . I will proceed with that and see what the report would show .

Thank you for the advice .