leeshor
Well-Known Member
Pretty much.
Keep plugged in or run on Battery?
- Thread starter larryg-aia
- Start date
leeshor
Well-Known Member
That's true. As I remember Microsoft has quote a much longer charging life cycle than is typical for Li-ion batteries. The technology is improving.
OP
larryg-aia
Member
so from above, i'm mostly working out of the house at home and the unit is plugged in while I work on my desktop. I want to take it off the charger for a while - lets say 30-60 minutes and probably not use it again until the night or even the next day. From what I'm reading above, better off not plugging it in again and letting it run down a bit to maybe 50% or so. Would that seem the likely scenario or is there another way to look at it?
We seem to get this question at least once a month so I'll post the official recommendations from the Surface Team:
Battery care
Operating temperature. Surface is designed to work between 32°F and 95°F (or 0°C to 35°C). Lithium-ion batteries are sensitive to high temperatures, so keep your Surface out of the sun and don’t leave it in a hot car.
Recharge any time. The battery doesn’t need to be empty or low before you recharge. You can recharge the battery whenever you like. However, it’s best to let the battery run to below 10 percent at least once per month before you recharge it.
Battery warranty. If your Surface battery is found to be defective during the warranty period, it is covered under the standard Surface Warranty.
Microsoft Surface battery and power | Recharge Surface
I've also added this to the Sticky in each forum.
Battery care
Operating temperature. Surface is designed to work between 32°F and 95°F (or 0°C to 35°C). Lithium-ion batteries are sensitive to high temperatures, so keep your Surface out of the sun and don’t leave it in a hot car.
Recharge any time. The battery doesn’t need to be empty or low before you recharge. You can recharge the battery whenever you like. However, it’s best to let the battery run to below 10 percent at least once per month before you recharge it.
Battery warranty. If your Surface battery is found to be defective during the warranty period, it is covered under the standard Surface Warranty.
Microsoft Surface battery and power | Recharge Surface
I've also added this to the Sticky in each forum.
Typical Batteries from IHVs and OEMs have 500-800 cycles over the lifetime of the device and Microsoft worked with their provider to get 1500-2200 cycles over the lifetime of the device, which is 3x times greater. In theory, this should allow these devices to retain 80% capacity over 3 years.
At work I'm using Dell's Power Management App, that let you choose when charge or not my XPS 13 battery when it's plugged. Currently my laptop automatically charges when battery drops below 50% and stops once 80% is achieved. I wonder why other manufacturers doesn't implement something similar.
Mainly this is due to old thinking, with the current battery technology as long as you run the battery below 10% once a month you should be fine....
This app is only available in some (high) Dell laptops. Mine is i7 version, a friend of mine had the i3 one and don't have it. Maybe is something related to bios version. IMHO is something useful when you plan to use a laptop as desktop PC. This avoid to overcharge your battery or, at at least, avoid mini cycles (xx to 100% then 98-99%, 100% again, and so on) like Apple does with iPhones and iPads.
Just to clarify, whenever the battery achieves the desired charge (80% in my case), it not only stops charging but use only AC, so battery does not used/drain.
For me this is an amazing implementation. Good for you, Dell.
All modern power management schemes are capable of preventing over-charging of batteries when plugged in, if the OEM has not implemented the technology and require the use of an utility that is worrisome. Microsoft has actually implemented it via the Power Management and Cooling Firmware.
How it works?
What the Dell's app automatically do is the same some people do when you use a laptop as a desktop PC... Manually remove the battery before docking it... Something you can't do on a ultrabook like the XPS 13 or a tabletPC like the Surface Pro.
The Firmware prevents the continued charging of the battery when plugged in and when the Battery reaches 100%, AC Only. I posted the Surface Engineering Team's best practice a few posts ago.
