Cycles and percentage of charge are, along with heat, the factors that determine most the wear and tear of the laptop battery. Here's what to do about it
Initially, laptop batteries can be extremely high-performing - top-of-the-line models deliver up to 10 hours of battery life, or more - but they can degrade rather quickly. After a year, in fact, the autonomy decreases dramatically and in some cases it could be reduced by half.
Much, however, also depends on the use you make of the laptop and how you "treat" the battery. As it happens for the smartphone battery, in fact, some tricks are necessary in order not to ruin the laptop battery and preserve its autonomy and duration. One of the most effective tricks, in this case, is to manage at best charge and discharge cycles: each battery, in fact, has a finite number of charging cycles (usually between 800 and 1,000), value beyond which it will not be able to charge completely. Finding out whether it is advisable to keep the battery on charge while using the laptop or whether it is better to remove the battery when the device is plugged in could make the difference.
Manage Charging Cycles
Correct management of battery charging and discharging cycles will help extend battery life and prevent battery life from being significantly reduced after just a few months of use. As shown by several researches on the subject - not least the one carried out by the Battery University - a lithium-ion battery should never be fully recharged, nor completely discharged. Una ricarica del 100%, infatti, ridurrà i “cicli di vita” a disposizione dell’accumulatore, mentre limitandosi a cariche da 80-90% si riuscirà a ottimizzare il tutto, riuscendo a raddoppiare (o quasi) l’aspettativa di vita della batteria.
Fonte foto: Shutterstock
Batteria sotto carica
Il calore rovina le batterie
Il calore è tra le cause principali di batterie degradate e dalla scarsa durata. Temperature oltre i 30 gradi centigradi, infatti, fanno sì che i legami chimici tra gli ioni di litio si deteriorino in fretta e si rompano, limitando così la capacità di carica dell’accumulatore. La produzione di calore, però, è anche uno degli “effetti secondari” della ricarica delle batterie: insomma, più a lungo si ricaricano le batterie, più si corre il rischio di ridurne l’aspettativa di vita. Se la temperatura della batteria dovesse restare per tre mesi oltre i 40 gradi centigradi – tanto per fare un esempio – si calcola che perderà il 35% circa della sua capacità di accumulo (e autonomia, di conseguenza).
Fonte foto: Shutterstock
Vale la pena rimuovere la batteria dopo averla ricaricata? Le opinioni sono contrastanti
Caricare il computer mentre si lavora
Nonostante gli sforzi in questo senso, non esiste un’indicazione unica e univoca se si possa tenere il computer costantemente sotto carica mentre si lavora o si gioca. Each manufacturer, in fact, gives more or less different indications on how to behave: some say that it is not necessary to remove the battery even once it has reached the desired level of charge (so much so that some models do not have a removable battery); others, however, recommend unplugging the power once the battery is sufficiently charged.
Neverthless, the final decision is up to the user. If you decide to keep the battery constantly on charge, make sure that the ambient temperature is not high and that the PC's heat dissipation systems are working perfectly. If, on the other hand, you choose to remove the battery, you should make sure that it is about 50% charged: higher or lower values could definitely compromise its operation.