Dear Geek,
I bought a new laptop, and I’ve just had a lot of friends tell me different things about how to prolong the battery. I had one friend tell me that I should discharge the battery before charging it completely back up, and another that they should be charged between 40%-80%. What’s the best way to keep your lithium-oin battery in the best condition possible?
Sincerely,
Dead Battery
Dear Charged,
There is a lot of confusion about this because lithium-ion batteries are a lot different than the older, nickel-based batteries.There are a few things you can do to help.
The first thing is to preform shallow discharges instead of discharging to 0% all the time. Lithium-ion batteries do best when you discharge them for a bit, then charge them up for a bit. Studies on the subject show that discharges to 50% are better for your battery’s long-term life than, say, small discharges to 90% or large discharges to 0% (since the 50% discharges provide the best number of cycles-to-usage ratio).
Lithium-ion batteries also don’t need to be charged to 100%, they actually prefer not to be. When possible, it is good to keep your battery in the 40%-80% range to prolong the life of the battery. If you do charge it to 100%, do not leave it plugged in. This as well can hurt the battery.
Another important thing to remember is that you need to keep the battery (and the rest of your laptop) cool. A hot battery will degrade in heath much quicker than a cool one.
Keep these things in mind and your battery will last longer. But if needed it’s okay to discharge to 0% or charge to 100%. Remember that your battery is going to die in a few years, no matter what you do—even if you just let it sit on a shelf.
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