Lenovo laptop: Is it ok to leave the battery charging while it is being used?

Question

Is it ok to leave the battery charging while it is being use? Or is it ok to keep the power plugged in with full charged battery while the laptop is in use? Can this shorten battery's lifespan?

Solution

Most laptop batteries these days are Lithium Ion based - so constant charging won't hurt them. This seems logical as most people don't even realise that battery care is even "a thing" let alone important.

Good tips for looking after a battery include:

• Avoid frequent complete discharge of a batter as contrary to popular belief, this can actually put strain on a lithium battery.
• Keep the battery and laptop cool. No hotter than 95 degrees for an extended period of time.
• Consider removing the battery if you are planning to work the laptop hard on mains for an extended period of time
• Calibrate your battery and gauge by doing occasional (not frequent) full discharge/charge cycles
• Lithium batteries degrade over time - when buying a new battery for your laptop, buy a "new" battery - not one from old stock
• When storing the laptop unused for a long period of time, store it with some charge, but not full charge and do a calibration charge when you put it back into service. Storing at 100% or empty is bad for the battery. try storing at half charge or just below
• Look into buying high capacity batteries rather than spares - this can often server better.

Most important out of the above is to remember that heat destroys batteries a lot faster than a bad charge/discharge pattern. Lithium batteries are "memory free" which means that charging from part-charged or not doesn't make much of an impact (if any) and most damage done over a long, bad charge/discharge life can be undone with a calibration or two.

enter link description here This document (although not the source for my info) contains mostly the same information and probably explains better than I could

Comments

[Daniel B]

Better yet: Avoid complete discharge (as in to 0%), totally. Even a single occurrence will greatly reduce the usable capacity. It’s also worth noting that there is no such thing as “constant charging”. When your battery is full, it will stop charging until drained to a certain value. Frequently, it’s set to 96%.

[Fazer87]

definitely Daniel - thanks for pointing this out, but if it happens as a one off - I wouldn't be too worried about the impact this will have over the whole lifespan of the battery

[Daniel B]

Well, I lost roughly 13% capacity when the battery died while my notebook was in standby mode. I don’t recommend it. :)

[David Schwartz]

"Consider removing the battery if you are planning to work the laptop hard on mains for an extended period of time" This recommendation is obsolete. For modern laptops, the recommendation is the opposite -- the battery should always be left in.