Saving Battery while plugged in?

[hutzlibu]

Hi everyone,

I am thinking about getting a Surface Pro,
But I intend to use it stationary a lot, with the power chord plugged in (and an extra Monitor).
Just as I used to do with my old Laptop.

But while I can use my Laptop even without the batterie(or more exactly, it doesn't matter) - so the lifespan of the batterie won't get shortened, I heard, that this is not the case with the surface pro.
So, that means, if I would use the Surface for 2 years entirely stationary ... the batterie would still suffer.
Am I correct about that?

And if this is correct ... do you know Microsoft Tablet's, where this is not the case?

Thanks in advance,
hutzlibu

 

[leeshor]

Welcome to the forum

I've been in the computer business since 1989. Every time I find someone who can't run their lapop without having it plugged in I ask the same question. Did they normally only use it plugged in? The answer was always yes. Some wonder how I knew that. If you don't run the battery down (a deep cycle, not nearly 0%), at least once a month it won't be there when/if you need it.

 

[hutzlibu]

" Did they normally only use it plugged in?"
No, not only.
At least once a month, when I am on the road to somewhere, I do indeed empty the batterie.
So ... doing this once or twice a month might be good, but i doubt it can be good for the batterie to be allways in use.
And my experience tells me the same.
I have 2 batteries for my laptop - one I use only rarely, when traveling(... about 1x a month) - and the other one all the time.
The last one has a much lower capacity.

 

[leeshor]

It doesn't hurt anything to always be on battery. The trick is not to always just top it off. If possible, once or twice a month get it down to around 20% or maybe even less then charge to 100%. I almost never use any of my portable devices plugged in unless it's necessary and never had issues with having to get a replacement battery. Today's batteries have a limited number of charge cycles so topping off will age it prematurely.

 

[Orlbuckeye]

Dell has a proces thats calle Desktop Charge Mode which simulates a battery recharging when it's lugged in all the time. This is supposed to extend the batteries lifetime. One thing different between laptops and tablets is most laptops have replaceable batteries while most laptops don't. But also tablets tend to be used more on battery then laptops.