Use battery or main power ?

I saw a lot of discussions on how to prolong the laptop lithium battery life. Based on the suggestions, it seems that users should charge the lithium battery to around 80% full (never to 100%), and unplug the main power, and let the battery run to around 20% (it is good to let the battery "exercise", but never at a low charge level) before plugging the main power to charge the battery again to 80%. Is that a better practice than keeping the main power plugged in and giving no chance to using the battery?

 

Li-Ion batteries have a finite amount of charge cycles. If you plan on using the laptop plugged in for a good period of time, keep it at 40-60% charge, remove the battery and use main power. Store the battery somewhere dry. If you're taking the laptop to lots of different places and using the battery often, just let the ACPI handle the charging when you plug it in.

 

If you're leaving your laptop plugged in for a long time, drain the battery to 40%, remove it, and store it somewhere cool and dry. Then use just main power.

If you're plugging your laptop in for let's say a few days then no need to remove battery. Best way is to keep battery topped up at all times in this case.

Drain battery completely and recharge every month or so.

Or you can just get a warranty that covers batteries.

 

Thanks. I got the impression that
(1) lithium batteries are designed for use frequently -- it is not a good idea to keep it charged and then use the main power -- need to excercise it form time to time -- to prolong its life
(2) it is not good to top off the battery -- it is good to keep it charged at 80% or below to heve a longer life
(3) some people just want to keep the battery attched to the laptop as ups, so it is constantly charged and dischared when main power is plugged in, not a happy situation.
(4) when you keep the lithium battery in a storage, that does not prolong the lithium battery life (it has a maximum 3 -4 years you use it or not)

If these are true, then it seems that even when you have the main power available, you still want to run on the battery from time to time.

 

(1) If stored away properly, it will not degrade by anything significant over long periods of time.
(2) Not really, keep it at 40 to 60% for long term storage other than that, if you use it at least once a week, keep it at full charge. A normal laptop use will not require to keep it at a particular level of charge.
(3) If the ACPI is half decent, the battery will stop charging once it reaches full charge and will not resume charging even if it looses some of it's charge. My N50 read 98% not charging this morning and it has been plugged in with the battery for quite a while.

 

Might be worth taking a look at Basic to Advanced Battery Information from Battery University

 

Running two notebook for 4+ years(closer to 5), plugin all the time. Still have about 60% of the life comparing with brand new.

So forget about how to extend your battery, I doubt you would use it longer than I do.

 

Knowing that alone should mitigate most of any additional battery information/

After all, what's the point of have a battery if you don't intend to use it--at least from time to time?