Should i leave laptop plugged in with battery

For both types of batteries, the following statements are true at least as far as modern laptops are concerned :. So, based on this, do we conclude that you should leave your laptop plugged in all the time?

Not quite. The truth about lithium-based batteries is that they are inherently unstable. They begin to lose capacity from the moment they are produced, and numerous factors hasten their decline. These include:. The last two are the ones that we're most concerned with here. A comprehensive study by Battery University highlights how voltage levels and high temperatures will shorten the life of a battery in isolation and even more when they combine.

Lithium-ion batteries charge to 4. At this level, the battery will have a lifespan of discharge cycles. Every 0. Unfortunately, at this level, the battery is only around 60 percent charged.

The runtime will be a little more than half of a fully charged battery. And then there's heat. High temperatures, typically classified as being over 30 degrees Celsius, will shorten the life of a battery irrespective of any other factors. Simply leaving your laptop in your car on a summer afternoon is a bad idea. When you combine the stress of high temperature with the stress of high voltage, the effects are even worse. Originally from Chicago, he is a graduate of New York University's business and economic reporting program.

View all posts by Muhammad Wayne ». Related Posts. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. This means that keeping a fully charged laptop plugged in all day won't damage the power unit. As Protect Your Gadget points out, this does come with a caveat.

A laptop battery is healthiest when it maintains a charge of roughly 70 to 80 percent. If the charge is kept too low or too high on a consistent basis, your battery won't last as long. Of course, keeping your charge hovering around 75 percent throughout the workday isn't always practical. Laptops are only as good as their batteries, however, and proper care of your battery is essential to making sure it retains a long life and charge.

Leaving your laptop plugged in constantly is not bad for your battery, but you will need to be careful of other factors, such as heat, to prevent your battery from damage. Most laptops use lithium-ion batteries. Unlike nickel-based batteries, lithium-ion batteries don't suffer from the "memory effect," meaning that discharging and recharging them will not have an effect on long-term battery life.

Once your battery is charged to full capacity, it will simply stop charging, so keeping your laptop plugged in will not cause any issues to your battery.

With lithium-ion batteries, it is better to avoid discharging them completely then recharging them to full capacity -- this is called a "deep cycle," and this process is only useful for nickel—cadmium and nickel—metal hydride batteries.