Quote:
Originally Posted by Outrager
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/09/laptop-battery/
This article is for laptop batteries, but I assume it would be the same for the Kindle and smartphones/tablets since they all use Lithium-ion polymer batteries.
Stop charge at 80%. Charge at 40%. That's optimal, but doesn't mean people will do that since it's kind of annoying. Also, the Kindle lasts so long those extra battery charges might not even matter.
|
It's "optimal" only in terms of the number of discharge cycles one will wring out of the battery, not in terms of how long your device will last - since the article is talking laptops, not ereaders, and laptops are fairly commonly used plugged in. As the article says:
Quote:
|
Battery University states that a battery charged to 100 percent will have only 300-500 discharge cycles, while a battery charged to 70 percent will get 1,200-2,000 discharge cycles.
|
So if I only need to use my laptop battery once a month, leaving it plugged in all the time except for that one day a month will mean I will get far more life out of my battery than I will expect to get out of my laptop - a theoretical 33 years (I doubt it, in practice!). Unplugging it every day using their rather onerous schedule would mean I would only get 4 years out of it. Or, if I was a heavy user and needed to cycle it twice a day, 2 years.