Longer life for a laptop battery?

Question

I've never had a laptop before, but I'm getting one this week.

I know that with things like cellphones and mp3 players, you should let the battery die completely before recharging it fully to give it a longer life.

Does the same concept apply to laptop batteries?

Is it bad to have it plugged in all the time?

Should I leave it plugged in overnight?

Any other tips?

Answer 1

Actually, it is a fallacy that you should let any (modern) battery die completely before recharging.

As long as the charging circuit in the device is smart enough not to OVERcharge the battery, there is absolutely no good reason with a Lithium-Ion battery to fully discharge it before re-charging.

Doing a "deep discharge" on occasion (every couple months) months won't hurt the battery, but Li-Ion batteries do not build up memory like older battery technologies.  Also, the charging circuits in most laptops are quite intelligent and stop charging before any damage is done to the batteries.

Some manufacturers, like Lenovo, go as far as to design the charging circuit in such as way that it rarely ever reaches 100% capacity.  It is only charged to 100% every once in a while... It "normally" charges to somewhere between 96 and 99% capacity (only a couple minutes of run-time difference, but it prevents the possibility of over-charging on a regular basis.)