Should you leave your laptop plugged in and charging when you’re not on-the-go? What’s best for the battery? It’s a tough question, and there are quite a few contradictory recommendations out there.
You Can’t Overcharge the Laptop’s Battery
It’s important to understand the basics of how the standard lithium ion (Li-ion) and Lithium polymer (LiPo) batteries in modern devices work.
There are a lot of battery myths out there.There’s no way to “overcharge” these batteries. When you get to 100% charge and leave your laptop plugged in, the charger will stop charging the battery. The laptop will just run directly off the power cable. After the battery discharges a bit, the charger will kick into gear again and top the battery off. There’s no risk of damaging the battery by charging it over its capacity.
All Batteries Wear Down Over Time (For a Few Reasons)
Your laptop battery will always wear down over time. The more charge cycles you put the battery through, the more it will wear down. Different batteries have different ratings, but you can often expect about 500 full charge cycles.
That doesn’t mean you should avoid discharging the battery. Storing the battery at a high charge level is bad for it. On the other hand, letting the battery run down to completely empty every single time you use it is also bad. There’s no way to just tell your laptop to leave the battery at about 50% full, which might be ideal. On top of that, high temperatures will also wear down the battery more quickly.
In other words, if you were going to leave your laptop battery in a closet somewhere, it would be best to leave it at about 50% charged capacity and make sure the closet was reasonably cool.
That would prolong the battery’s life.Remove the Battery to Avoid Heat, if You Can
Here’s one clear thing: Heat is bad. So, if your laptop has a removable battery, you may want to remove the battery from the laptop if you plan on leaving it plugged in for a long time. This will ensure the…
The post Should I Leave My Laptop Plugged In All The Time? appeared first on FeedBox.