Tuesday's Tip: Getting the Most Out of Batteries

How many times have you charged a cell phone, laptop or cordless phone battery to find it dead right away? Here are a few tips that I thought may help maximize your battery usage.

1. If you do not use your laptop for extended periods of time (a week or more), remove the battery pack from the laptop.
2. Do not expose the battery to high heat or freezing temperatures. Do not leave your battery in your car in the summer. Hot batteries discharge very quickly, and cold ones can't create as much power.
3. Make sure to plug your laptop charger adapter into a UPS and not directly into a power outlet or surge protector.
4. If you have a nickel-metal hydride battery, completely drain and recharge the battery once a month to maximize its capacity to hold a charge.
5. Fully charge new battery before use. New batteries needs to be fully charged and discharged (cycled) a few times before it can condition to full capacity. And don't interrupt the charge - you could permanently shorten the battery life.
6. For laptops that work as Desktop Replacement, the battery should be re-installed every 3-4 weeks and allowed to fully discharge.
7. Leaving a battery in a laptop while using an electrical outlet for long periods of time will keep the battery in a constant state of charging up and that will reduce the life cycle of the battery.
8. The easiest way to fully discharge a cordless or cell phone battery is to wait for the power to run out before connecting the handset to the base station or charging plug.