I question the wisdom of "Modern Standby." When I put my laptop in sleep mode, I want it to sleep. I don't want it to be using the network, checking for updates, fetching email, etc. It can do all of those things when I wake it up.

All of the hotbagging nonsense where a laptop cooks itself in a bag seems to be caused by Windows trying to be clever and deciding there's some really important stuff it needs to do, so it wakes up the machine, does a bunch of stuff, and doesn't get back to sleep.

Windows, you're not as clever as you think you are. None of this work is urgent. Just stay asleep until I wake you up. Seriously, just don't.

Yes, that is so true. Sleep should mean sleep with both eyes closed! not nightwatch.

But Windows isn't the only one to blame. Macbooks do the same (they're less bad because they boot so fast, turning them off completely isn't that painful).

My macbook would do something similar. It didn't get as hot, but if I left the wrong program open (Outlook), the battery would be around 5% when I took it out of the bag. If I made sure to close everything, sleep was pretty efficient. That was many years ago, maybe things got better.

"Modern Standby" is something that makes your laptop act like a phone. In my view, its only real purpose is to plausibly collect sensor data—just like a phone, or like all those "smart" speakers and "smart" TVs. The data itself has potential buyers and interested parties; it's a well-developed industry chain, and it's even subsidized by users paying for the devices themselves.