How to Make Your Laptop Battery Live Longer
Laptops were built to be mobile. That's why they come with batteries. Yet more and more employees and business owners rarely travel with their laptops at all, instead using them primarily as desktops.
Just one problem: when you leave your laptop plugged in all day every day, the battery never gets a chance to discharge and recharge -- which is critical to its long-term health.
In other words, you're shortening the battery's effective lifespan, and cheating yourself out of runtime for those occasions when you do need to go mobile.
Fortunately, there's a simple solution: pull the battery. As long as your laptop is connected to AC power, the battery isn't necessary; it'll run without it.
Just remember, of course, to pop the battery back in when you head to the conference room, the airport, etc. (Indeed, be sure to give it time to fully charge before you go anywhere.) Laptop batteries are hot-swappable, meaning you can insert or remove them even while the system is running.
I realize this represents something of a hassle, but it pains me to see laptop batteries dying unnecessarily premature deaths by being chained to AC power. Do yourself a favor: Keep your battery fresh by keeping it "unplugged."
Now, as for improving actual battery life while traveling, see the first link below.
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