Battery Care Tips for Laptop Users

Laptops aren’t meant to stay on desks all day. They’re designed so you can carry them around and play around in the park or at a cafe or even at the beach or poolside. Or at least for the creative types, it gives the ability to write or create designs wherever the muse is most likely to be there whispering into one’s ear. For the business types, perhaps in some boardroom or conference room at some building’s penthouse office. For the homebodies (and people who run home-based businesses or on telecommute arrangements), laptops give the freedom to move about.

Point of the matter is, our laptops are only as good as their batteries can give us juice to do whatever it is we need to use our computers for. So it pays to take care of one’s batteries. While today’s Lithium-based batteries aren’t as maintenance-hungry as the Nickel-based batteries of yore, you would still have to give your power packs some TLC every so often.

Doing some research on battery-saving techniques and tips, I came across this article on batteryunviersity.com. It’s quite long, but let me summarize the information for easy reference.

• Lithium-based cells provide at least 300-500 charge/discharge cycles. Okay, I do think it’s even higher than this, with modern packs reaching up to a thousand charge/discharge cycles. This means your batteries would theoretically last you a couple of years before showing degradation. Remember that a charge/discharge cycle would means running on battery power then plugging in to recharge. Repeately plugging and unplugging in rapid succession (e.g., within a few seconds or minutes) is bad because these already count as several charge/discharge cycles.
• Avoid frequent full discharges. Lithium-based cells prefer partial discharges rather than full discharges. Unlike the older Nickel-based batteries that you have to discharge fully to avoid the dreaded “memory effect,” Lithium-based cells are all right with partial discharging, and are even hurt if you always fully discharge before charging.
• Lithium-based cells should be given a full discharge/charge cycle once every 30 charge cycle. The apparent “memory effect” is caused by “digital memory,” which is the mis-calibration of the gauge in the battery’s circuitry. Do a full discharge/charge once every 30 cycles to re-calibrate.
• Oxidation is your enemy. Lithium-based cells deteriorate after two to three years not because of capacity loss, but because internal resistance builds up due to oxidation. Hence your cells would still hold juice after this time, but cannot deliver the necessary power because of high resistance inside the circuitry.
• Heat is your enemy. Heat accelerates oxidation. Storing your batteries in hot places or running/charging your device at high temperatures would shorten your battery’s life.
• Cool at 40%. Lithium-based battery packs are best stored at 40% capacity in cool places.

Remember, take care of your gadgets, and your gadgets will serve you well.

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