Always keep the laptop charged or use the battery?

A fairly common question about using laptops is how to extend battery life (or at least how to not shorten it more than usual). While all batteries deteriorate over time, many users wonder if the use we give them might even slightly affect their ability to retain energy and keep our devices powered for longer.

If so, how should we use the batteries?

It is to say, Should we always keep them 100% charged or should we plug and unplug them based on their energy level?

He spoke to several experts BBC Mundo They advised how best to use the batteries, which are usually made of lithium (lithium ion or lithium polymer).

Battery life

“Battery technology is getting better and better with every generation. 10 years ago, laptop battery efficiency started to decline after a few hundred charge cycles, ”Ashley Rolfe, Lenovo’s Chief Technology Officer in Ireland and the UK, told BBC Mundo.

Now Laptop batteries typically have a lifespan of three to five years, during which time they can complete between 500 and 1,000 charge cycles.

“You want the battery to give you as much energy as possible for each charge and last between three and five years,” Kent Griffith, an energy technology researcher at Northwestern University, told BBC World.

How do you achieve that balance?

Keep a laptop connected at all times and 100% “is absolutely safe and perfectly normal”, says Lenovo’s Rolfe, BBC Mundo

Lenovo and third-party laptops “use sensors and control logic to keep the battery from overcharging or overheating,” he explains.

However, if you “keep a battery at 100% all the time, it will slightly shorten its life.”

His colleague Phil Jakes, Lenovo’s Director of Strategic Technology and Principal Engineer, agrees: “With the higher energy density chemistries adopted in recent years, we have found that batteries deteriorate much more quickly if they remain fully charged, especially at higher temperatures”, he tells BBC Mundo.

This is because “100% charge is the toughest condition your battery can be in, because that’s when the voltage is the highest,” explains Kent Griffith of Northwestern University.

The manufacturer HP thinks the same, as he tells BBC Mundo: “HP does not recommend that laptops are always connected to AC power.”

“Most of today’s batteries have the technology to prevent overcharging once they reach 100%,” but this technology does not prevent the high state of charge from “creating additional stress on the battery that can accelerate its degradation over time” , explains HP.

So “if you keep the battery away from 100%, the battery can certainly last longer,” says Griffith.

The recommendation of these experts is to limit the amount of time the laptop stays fully charged or instead of charging it to 100%, only charge it to 80% every time you plug it in.

Technically, batteries are more ‘happy’ at 50% charge, while energized at 0% or 100%, so technicians say it’s best to keep them between 20 and 80%”, Comenta Rolfe.

While limiting the load to 80% “gives the maximum benefit, there is still a significant benefit in lowering the maximum load point to 90 or 95%,” says Jakes.

Microsoft also warns on its website that in the case of its Surface laptops (not for other brands), “batteries held high will lose capacity more quickly”.

“You can help prevent this accelerated deterioration by not leaving your laptop (Surface) connected to the power supply for long periods of time. If you need to keep the laptop connected all the time, we recommend that you use the battery limitation mode, ”says Microsoft.

Various brands such as Microsoft, Lenovo and HP offer the possibility to limit the maximum laptop load in their configurations.

For example, HP allows you to limit it to 80% in “Maximize my battery health” mode.

In general, “if you want the battery to last longer, you can make sure you get a little less power each cycle (80% instead of 100%), but then the battery will be able to complete more charge cycles,” says Griffith.

In other words, it’s about “balancing the time the battery gives you each time you charge it and the number of cycles it can complete” over its entire life, he continues.

How will you use the laptop?

But these recommendations don’t necessarily mean that you should rush to immediately unplug the laptop every time it reaches 100%.

“All laptops have a control circuit to protect the batteries and prevent overcharging. But you can extend the battery life by leaving them at 80%, ”says Lenovo’s Rolfe.

But at the same time, he clarifies that “batteries nowadays last so long that it probably isn’t worth worrying about for most users.”

Today, “batteries are so good that they generally last longer than the life of the laptop,” he says.

Rolfe’s final recommendation is to think about how you will be using the laptop. That is, evaluate whether you will have constant access to a plug or whether you will not be able to connect to the power for a long time. In the latter case, it is better to take it fully charged.

“If you usually sit at your desk, set a loading limit,” he says. “But if you’re on the road most of the time, leave it at 100% and don’t worry about it!”

Also see:

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(Adapted from BBC Mundo)