Battery Life Practice

"A good reference for this is Battery University. They also have a helpful chart that compares each type of battery and how to treat it.

Basically, there are two ways you need to treat a battery depending on what type it is.

If it is Lithium-Ion, it really doesn't matter so much how you charge it. It copes very well with shallow charging and discharging, and never develops memory. The only downside to shallow discharges is that the charge meter may become inaccurate (without affecting actual battery life), but a full discharge followed by a full charge will recalibrate it. Fully discharging the battery on a regular basis may actually be more damaging to it.

If the battery is Ni-Cad or NiMH, then it prefers to be fully discharged then fully charged. If the battery isn't fully charged or discharged, it may develop memory and have less capacity."

"For laptop batteries, Dell rates batteries by the number of charge / discharge cycles. A charge / discharge cycle can occur when docked as a laptop starts up and shuts down for example, despite the cycle being very short. Dell may issue battery replacement warnings after 400-600 charge-discharge cycles.

A tip to improve battery lifetime is to remove the battery when on AC power if your brand of laptop allows it. The tradeoff is that you become susceptible to your work being lost if the power fails (if not plugged into a UPS)."