We give you some recommendations to care for and pamper your laptop's battery and get the most out of it

One of the aspects that worries us the most when we get hold of a portable device is the autonomy that its battery will offer. How long will it last, what will be the period of time at maximum performance... are questions that we have all faced Controversies aside, such as the one that Apple starred in and the battery in the iPhone, what we are going to do here is give a series of guidelines to try to optimize the use of our laptop's battery.

Seeking that the battery that powers our laptop last as long as possible and in the best state of he alth we will see how we should charge it, how often time, the temperature of use or if it is correct to combine the use of battery and cable power.

We start from the premise that with the passage of time, a laptop's battery lasts less and less, offers less autonomy, up to that finally fails and we have no choice but to go to the checkout or depend 24 hours on the plug to the network.

Load percentages

Forget the memory effect of nickel and metal hydride (NiMH) batteries. These, based on charges, would forget the full charge and begin to recharge at lower and lower levels. The problem is that many continue to act as if this still happens with current batteries.

When it comes to charging the battery, you've probably heard a lot of advice that indicates that it's good to let it discharge completely to start charging, and that it should always be charged until it reaches 100%. Well, none is an absolute truth.

If we let it get completely empty repeatedly (for once nothing happens), we cause the battery to be damaged XXXXX. On the other hand, performing complete cycles up to 100% we are depleting the number of cycles (which is limited) and that all batteries have. Normally, a full recharge cycle is applied when we recharge the battery after discharging below 20%

It's best to allow this to discharge down to a low figure, maybe 20% or 30% and do uploads that reach close to 100%. That is if you use the laptop frequently. If you are going to leave it inactive for a long period, it is advisable to leave the battery with a charge close to 70%, since a charge that is too high or low for a long period in which we do not use it can be harmful.

Application and function control

Some unnecessary applications and functions consume excessively, as well as some web pages. It is interesting to keep track of all of them so that you can increase battery life both in the short and long term. You can thus deactivate the connections you don't use (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, NFC…), not use excessive screen brightness or even activate a power saving mode Energy.

You can also check the applications that are running and focus on those running in the background to exit all the ones that don't matterWe can use Battery Saver in Windows 10, a mode that will automatically activate when the computer reaches 20% of the battery, limiting and blocking applications in the background.

Temperature

The temperature is essential to take care of the battery. We must stay away from extremes, as they do not perform correctly both in excessive heat and in low temperatures. You will have noticed how, for example, in summer, when 40º al are normal, the batteries fly and perform worse. The same happens with excessive cold and temperatures below 0º.

It is therefore ideal to have a regular average temperature so that the battery does not suffer excessive wear during use diary.

Related to the battery and its temperature is the ventilation of the equipment, and that is if we use it on the legs, on the bed , without a hard surface in between, we can cover the fans. These get hot, generate more heat in the equipment and in the battery, which in turn causes consumption to grow and autonomy to decrease.Good ventilation is therefore essential.

Removable Battery

If your laptop's battery can be removed, it is interesting not to combine the simultaneous use of cable power and the battery. If you are going to use it for hours, use only one of the two sources and combine them, for example, to charge the battery. However, currently laptops are designed so that when the charge reaches 100%, it is cut off and therefore the battery does not deteriorate.

In addition, the care of the connectors that transmit the load is important, so it doesn't hurt to have once a year ( or more depending on use) let's disassemble the battery to clean the connectors that connect it to the computer and thus remove dust and other debris that can enter.

Operating system updated

To finish it is recommended (almost always, although seeing Windows 10 October 2018 Update does not seem like it) keep the _software_ of our equipment updated , since the programs and utilities are updated with improvements and optimizations that result in a lower consumption of resources in our equipment.