How to take care of your laptop battery: the best tips

The battery is one of the most delicate components of our laptop. From its optimal use it will depend that we can enjoy greater autonomy away from a plug and of course, that much more time passes without us having to spend more money to renew it. For this and other reasons, today in Professional Review we are going to provide you with some keys, tricks and tips to take full care of your laptop's battery.

Index of contents

Optimize and stretch the battery life of your laptop

Before starting we must make a clarification so that no one is misled: batteries are a component that ends up being depleted by their own use; We cannot avoid this, but we can move it back in time through a series of practices that we must apply, and a series of practices that we must not apply. The only way that the laptop battery won't wear out is not to use it (and even this, as we will see, is not entirely true) but then why have we bought a laptop?

Once this is clarified, and without further delay, let's go to what really matters to you and why you have come this far: how to take care of your laptop battery .

Battery charge

There are many opinions about the most appropriate time to charge your laptop battery, from those who bet on always leaving it charging to those who advocate total exhaustion before proceeding to a new charge. As in life, extremes are not the best option.

In many cases, leaving the battery always charging accelerates its own wear process; At the opposite extreme, fully charging and discharging it, i.e. imposing full charge cycles on it, is almost an even worse idea since batteries have a cycle life. Thus, if your laptop battery has an estimated life of 600 cycles and you do a full charge per day, within 600 days (probably sooner) you should invest in a new battery.

So, to refine:

• A good tip is to let the battery discharge below 40% of its capacity once or twice a week, this way you will hardly complete one or two charge cycles per week. The rest of the time you can use your laptop connected to the current; Contrary to what some say, this does not negatively affect your computer or battery. Ah! And it is not necessary to remove the batteries from the equipment either, because, plain and simple, it is an absurd action that is useless. When you are going to be a long time without using the laptop, make sure that you save it with 40-50% of battery capacity. Do not forget that if you do it with the battery fully discharged, it could enter a deep discharge state from which it may not recover.

Consumption

We now jump from the load to another important aspect, consumption. If we apply the logic, it is evident that an excessive consumption of the battery will end up degrading the battery itself. As we have mentioned, the ideal is not not to use it, but also not to use it excessively, as long as you download it a couple of times a week below 40% everything will be fine.

In this way, by reducing the consumption of the battery, you will not only increase the duration of the charge itself, but also its useful life. But how can I reduce the battery consumption? It is very simple:

• Deactivate the connections and functions that make use of the battery but that you do not need, for example, if you are not using any bluetooth device, deactivate the bluetooth connectivity; If you are not going to use it connected to the internet, you can also deactivate the WiFi, so you will avoid spending energy continuously searching for networks that you cannot connect to. Reduce the brightness to your needs, it is not necessary to illuminate the whole room with the screen of your laptop.Activate the energy saving mode in both Windows (from the notification panel) and Mac (System Preferences).

More very effective tips

Charging and consumption are two essential dimensions if you want to fully care for your laptop battery, however, you cannot neglect key tips such as the following:

• Avoid extreme ambient temperatures. Apple points out that the ideal is that your laptop is between 16 and 22ºC but in any case, do not expose it to temperatures above 35 ° C because the battery could be damaged affecting its duration. And at the opposite extreme, very cold environments can also negatively affect your laptop battery. Do not leave the laptop on the bed, sofa or on your legs, this can hinder the operation of the fans and lead to overheating.

• Be careful with the case you use! Make sure it allows your laptop to ventilate properly, especially when it comes to case covers that remain in place when you are using the laptop. Plug in and turn on your computer when you are going to charge other devices such as your smartphone or tablet, otherwise you will drain one battery to charge the other, a bit absurd don't you think?

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If you get used to applying these usage tips, you will do it almost without realizing it and without effort, and you will be able to optimize the battery of your laptop extending the duration in your day to day and also extending its total useful life. But if you still have doubts, you can take a look at these truths and lies about your laptop battery.