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Let us leave the laptop plugged in for as long as we want without negatively affecting the battery.

480 points posted to Laptop Power by sotopheavy Feb 21

My rule of thumb is if a battery goes down below an hour of laptop life it is useless . This usually happens within the first 8 months of owning a laptop for me.

If I'm using my laptop to surf the internet I will usually plug it in until it's full, then unplug it, then plug it in when it gets low, then unplug it again when it's full. This got so annoying that I eventually just left it plugged in and my battery now lasts 15 minutes with wifi off and the screen dimmed all the way down. There has to be a better way to manage laptop power than this. Let us leave the laptop plugged in for as long as we want without negatively affecting the battery.

jorge
Feb 21		 Dupe.
jmxz
Feb 21		 Could someone point to the evidence that leaving it plugged in harms the battery?

Since I used to use a laptop commuting by train, I used to drain my battery 2X-day; and it seemed to me those lived even less long than my batteries today; in a laptop that stays plugged in all day.
okroger104
Feb 21		 I'm with jmxz on this one. No evidence of that claim. What is known about Li-Ion batts is that they have a limited cycle life. The more you discharge them down past the 50% capacity mark, the shorter their life.

Most lappies detect when the battery is charged and stop charging it. Notice how the charge light goes from being always on when charging and when it reaches max, the light blinks periodically? That periodic blink is a "topping" charge. At this point, while plugged in, your batt becomes an UPS.

What's more, Li-Ion batts have a limited life whether you use them or not with their capacity decreasing.
jorge
Feb 21		 There's some info on the original ideas.
claudio_ch
3 days ago		 What I heard is that the batteries get degraded when they are kept in a warm place. And usually your laptop will produce heat when it is used. So if what I have heard is true, than what Dell would need to do is design the laptop in a way that keeps the battery as far away fro whatever is hot in your laptop and maybe even provide some cooling to it.
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