How To Charge Your Batteries – No, Really!
Farhad Manjoo, tech guru over at Slate is the best.
While we were all scratching our heads wondering how to make our batteries lost longer, he called up Isidor Buchmann, the Ceo of Cadex Electronics, a Canadian company that makes battery-testing equipment to get a few tips on how to make sure your battery goes on and on and on and …
Laptops:
Manjoo writes that the typical lifespan of a lithium-ion laptop battery ranges from 18 months to 2 years.
The main culprits for killing off your laptop battery include undercharging, overcharging and HEAT. So try and keep your laptop as cool as possible.
The best technique here is to charge up your battery when the computer is turned off.
When your laptop is turned on and plugged in, you should pull the battery out of your computer. Yes, pull it out. “I know that’s inconvenient,” Buchmann says, “but keeping your laptop plugged in when the battery’s fully charged—that combination is bad for your battery.”
Phones, cameras, and other gadgets:
To make sure that your battery lasts long, try and keep your cells in the 20-80% range and keep them cool.
Manjoo writes the best way to store batteries that you won’t be using for a long time—as in a camera, though this also applies to laptop batteries—is to charge them to the 40 percent level first.
Charging the battery a little bit before you put it away ensures that it doesn’t get down to dangerously low levels while in storage.
The memory effect: Will your battery lose capacity if you don’t let it go down to zero every once in a while? Not likely, writes Manjoo.
Read the rest of the piece at Slate.com
